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

[Rosenstrauch]

EDIT: Mass Effect 3 stuff. Editing in because making a new post seems... eh.

Javik: Imagine if everyone you knew was dead. You could not remember their faces, or the color of the sky above your home.
Javik: The memories were gone... but so was the pain.
Javik: Would you want to remember that, Commander? Even if it meant watching everyone die again?

My fucking heart. Oh, Elidibus...

EDIT: Doing Priority: Earth now. The setpieces are genuinely pretty challenging for my hot blooded lizard brain, the horror of what's happened around me is basically what I wanted from the Final Days outside of a single instance in Thavnair, and the sheer tension in every aspect of this mission is so palpable I can taste it.

Also, Javik is Elidibus. And Emet-Selch. And a better Venat than Venat. You know why? Because Javik ADMITS THAT HE FAILED. There is no 1,000 IQ 5D Wizard's Chess that only makes sense if the character is a total sociopath. The Protheans tried. They genuinely tried their fucking best. And they failed. And Javik owns that failure, whereas Venat is 100% written as an Ends Justify the Means character who is absolutely right (even though she's not).

EDIT: Okay. I have finished Priority: Earth. And... yeah, this is goddamn stupid.

Most of this is great. The entire approach to the Citadel beam is fantastic. The tension of getting hit at the very end, inexplicably surviving, and struggling onto the end is perfect. Probably full of plot holes, but the whole "you took more damage than you could possibly survive and are still going" thing is 100% emotional torque and I'm fine with it.

Even the ending I picked (Destroy) is actually pretty good. Yeah, the Geth die. EDI dies. Every species is set back pretty hard by this, since VI/AI development makes up the backbone of a lot of Mass Effect's technology. But it completely wipes out the Reapers, whereas the other two endings are... they try to paint them as Golden Endings, I know. And I'm sure if I looked them up on Youtube, the writers gave their best shot at making them seem like Golden Endings.

But I hate Golden Endings where they don't make sense, and frankly, I don't think Control or Synthesis make any degree of sense. I don't really want to elaborate why, but the former amounts to "giving one man/woman unchecked power over the galaxy for eternity is a disaster waiting to happen" and the latter amounts to "forcibly altering the existence of all lifeforms without their consent is so abhorrent I'd kill anyone who dared to try (if the game would let me)".

Basically, Synthesis is the Venat ending, but presented as explicitly the morally correct choice instead of "the ends justify the means!". I was already against Venat, so... yeah.

But I think the biggest takeaway I had from watching these endings is that you could remove Control and Synthesis, along with the entire existence of the Starchild, and it would only make the Mass Effect 3's ending better.

All in all: Great experience, great trilogy, writing was hit or miss at times, somehow tripped into a backflip at the end zone and fumbled the ball.

Pandaemonium

It's my sincere hope that our arrival and adventures in Pandaemonium are paving the way for an eventual "Split Timeline" reveal. The first tier capped off with the guy who asked us to time travel more or less saying "You've changed the past, but somehow it hasn't affected the present", which could easily be seen as supporting such a development. But it could just as easily mean that the writers are now playing with Back to the Future/Chrono Trigger rules, which are also rife with unfortunate implications of their own. Stuff like "If we're just casually rewriting history, where does the unwritten history go?".

[Rulakir]

It's my sincere hope that our arrival and adventures in Pandaemonium are paving the way for an eventual "Split Timeline" reveal. The first tier capped off with the guy who asked us to time travel more or less saying "You've changed the past, but somehow it hasn't affected the present", which could easily be seen as supporting such a development.

Unfortunately, I suspect this is going to be more time loop nonsense, but EW turned me into even more of a pessimist. :P

Elidibus' fate in our timeline is likely unchanged unless they retcon it. I would love something after Pandemonium where we find out Emet & Hyth were able to retrieve Elidibus' soul from the First, especially because that would make the intervention in SoS not appear so brutal given EW context. As much as I'd like an AU, I still want to 'fix' our timeline as much as possible and part of that is Elidibus not having burned through his soul for time travel fuel.

[AziraSyuren]

snip

Now that you’re done, I can say that the reason I think it’s not the best comparison is because ME3 set up the Reapers as a threat too powerful and too grave to reasonably deal with, so they ended up pulling a mediocre out-of-nowhere superweapon to handle it for us. The tension was there, the sense of dread was there, but too much of a good thing rolled over into being a threat that didn’t make sense to beat. By comparison, as anti-climactic as it was, at least we nipped the Final Days in the bud before it became a threat so grave that it’d require Catalyst-level nonsense to actually deal with.

And while it was still nonsense in its own way, Dynamis was nowhere near as nonsense as the Catalyst (both the object and the character).

[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.

[aveyond-dreams]

I had a longer post typed up but decided against posting it. Today was bad, I feel more isolated and belittled than I already was when it comes to this game's future and direction. This isn't my game or my story anymore. It's theirs.

[Rulakir]

Today was bad, I feel more isolated and belittled than I already was when it comes to this game's future and direction. This isn't my game or my story anymore. It's theirs.

Aveyond, join the Convocation. You don't belong here.

Seriously though, I know you're adverse to interacting with the community, but most of the people who agree with you are in the thread Discord. https://discord.gg/uzUNyK4T

Also, if it makes you feel any better, your threads were linked and translated by JP players on 5ch. They echo a lot of the same issues you've voiced.

[AziraSyuren]

The Leviathan DLC was fucking amazing though. Might've been the peak of the whole series for me. Fit my exact taste in terms of tone, aesthetic, and story beats.

"And the Reapers who trespass this world will understand our power. They will become our slaves. Today, they pay their tribute in blood."

That was my shit.

It really makes me wish Endwalker leaned a lot harder into the cosmic horror angle. They almost had something there with Endsinger but made her way too... human. I would've liked it a lot more if her origin was Meteion's sisters encountering some horrid something in space instead of just a bunch of dead or dying civilizations. I know a lot of people in this thread prefer "harder" (i.e. hard/soft science or magic) explanations for these kinds of things, but I would've loved it if Endsinger was something intentionally inconsistent or nigh-inexplicable with the universe's internal logic.

[Kuritzkale]

I had a longer post typed up but decided against posting it. Today was bad, I feel more isolated and belittled than I already was when it comes to this game's future and direction. This isn't my game or my story anymore. It's theirs.

You're a king bro, don't worry. As someone who has felt disconnected from the community from the start, I understand the feeling. But don't worry about it, you've got supporters, and are one of the few people on here who care enough to write out long responses to things, while remaining pretty reasonable.

Side note, mass effect has a better story than FFXIV could ever hope to have. Not that the FFXIV story is all bad, but even with the bad ending mass effect absolutely sweeps every single FF game, including 14. This has been an OBJECTIVE statement from the Mass Effect Follower. Don't even know how it was brought up, just thought I'd share my objective opinion on it.