Focus your appreciation, frustration, discussion, or arguments on the new ending content (as well as the newly "completed" story itself) here!

I started trying to play through the last leg of the game to reach the new ending content, but found the process to be too time consuming and frankly boring (after having my investment in the story effectively reduced to zero - may have to start over from the beginning if I'm going to replay the game at all), so I looked up the new ending sequences online.

Spoilers below, you've been warned:

I was pleased to discover that a NEW ending choice exists, in addition to the so-called "clarification" tacked on to the original three bullshit options. I have yet to SEE any of the other endings, but the new "fuck you Starchild ending is actually pretty good, in my book.

It doesn't truly address any of the gaping plot holes created by his character in the first place, but it completely redeems Shepard in my eyes. The fact that the Starchild's voice regresses into some creepy evil robot voice reinforces the idea that the other options were some kind of bullshit scam, that you in all your bad-assery saw straight through. I don't mind the trolling defeat that is basically a great big "fuck you" from Bioware/EA. I like tragedies, and I think it opens up possibilities for future games in the same universe (which would be admittedly shameless, but still worth looking into). It also turns the series into a record of beautiful and powerful tragedy that still serves a greater purpose.

Whether that's a satisfying conclusion or not is up to the individual, but I think it's substantially better writing than what we were stuck with before. I'm going to check out the rest of the new ending content to see if they have what it takes to redeem themselves (which I highly doubt), and get back to this

Just finished checking out the multicolored endings as well. I'm actually... genuinely surprised with how much I like them. I tried really hard to hold on to my resentment and continue to hate them for not addressing the major plot holes and inconsistencies created by the whole catalyst sequence... but I just don't seem to care anymore. Maybe it's been so long that I've just mellowed out, maybe it's the fact that I've let the majority of the game's events fade out of memory, so the issues aren't as glaring... but I feel like these new endings - all of them - do a pretty decent job of concluding the story. And while they're not dramatically different conclusions, they're different ENOUGH that it doesn't feel like I'm just choosing a single sentence and a color filter as the final note to my space opera.

Despite that, I'm not a fan of how half-assed the "slideshow" part of the ending feels. Nothing else in the game is that way, so it just comes across as cheap. Using the same image set for the 3 main endings is pretty deplorable considering they were supposedly trying to make them more unique, but I do appreciate the new cutscene material that WAS there.

The new endings do a great job of providing closure to the ME universe this time around (even if it doesn't address every detail), but they admittedly still do very little in the way of making you feel like your choices or galactic readiness mattered very much at all. I know that was a pretty big issue for some people, but I'm not horribly distraught over it. I'm just glad they made the four ending choices different enough that I feel like THAT choice actually mattered (with enough supplemental dialogue to make every choice feel reasonably justified and significantly less retarded). They could have done more with it, obviously, but I feel surprisingly satisfied (though I wouldn't really argue with anyone who wasn't)

...to be fair, though, I only watched one set of endings. MAYBE there's a "bad future" ending for all 3 that shows different images as consequences for your in-game decisions (for example, I saw baby Krogan in all 3 endings). That would be cool, and would make me feel a lot better about the copy/paste slideshow, but I kinda doubt that's gonna be the case.

Yeah, if you were a fucking dick to the Krogan, you see just how much you fucked them over. Also, if you had a love interest with Liarra, you'll see a difference in the end with the kid and the stargazer.

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I'm the one fucking this bitch, you're just holding the camera.

The new endings are still a big bag of space magic bullshit but they're a million miles better than the original ones. The fact that Starchild is a thing that exists still bugs me because honestly it's just terrible story-telling. They try to explain why he's there but I just don't buy it. Literal deus ex machina. Nobody likes that. Why does he even give you a choice about anything?

"Shit man I didn't think you'd make it this far. Welp, you can destroy all the Reapers if you want. Not going to stop you there."

My problems with the Extended Cut are pretty much everything involving Starchild. The gaping plot holes have mostly been filled in to the point where they don't bother me but everything from riding up on the floating platform onwards just reeks of sloppy writing. Sure, now I know why the Normandy was flying away and now I know that the mass relays don't all explode but the Reapers were created for dumb reasons and there's just no way they can fix that without surgically removing anything to do with the "Catalyst".

EC kinda calmed down my raging anger about the endings but I'm not satisfied with the conclusion to a five-year adventure with great characters and writing. I'm just... kinda done with the series. I might replay ME2 now and then but I have no intentions of touching ME1 or 3, nor buying anything games Mass Effect related.

Idk man. When they place Shepards plaque on the memorial in the Normandy and seeing Edi get emotional and saying that I gave her life and hugging my love interest, I definitely teared up because I knew I was saying good-bye to my character that was pretty much a digital avatar of me and every action I took was because of what I felt was the right thing to do. I mean shit, I spent five years with the guy and we had a good run, but I had to say good-bye. Sure, I can just boot up the game again, but I felt like I was satisfied with everything I did and how they summed everything up. Sure, a lot of people think the slideshow thing is bs, but Fallout did it and I didn't hear anyone complain about that. Maybe for some people this was a game that had too much hype that was impossible to quench their thirst for the perfect ending, but you can't satisfy everybody.

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I'm the one fucking this bitch, you're just holding the camera.

I'm willing to forgive the slideshow, but I'm with Cowbox.

Starchild retroactively fucked up the events of the whole series by turning everything I did into a fight against a villain who is little more than an internet troll starting flame wars with bullshit logical fallacies.

The entire galaxy united in order to stop an all powerful threat that was spawned by a 10 year old's perspective on "chaos" (starchild may not be an actual child, but his "logic" is as childish as it gets)

EC did its absolute best to smooth over that fact, and in some ways it succeeds (I'm quite happy with the resolution in general)... but the only way to redeem a space epic where the grand antagonist boils down to mere logic fail is to re-write that antagonist ENTIRELY. A hero is only as good as the villains he faces, and Starchild turned the reapers into a bad joke.

Hooray for Shepard! You saved us from pre-school.

Well to each their own I guess. Sorry it wasn't enough, but I've been there before, like with Star Wars, that'll haunt me till I die. Hope it doesn't bother you that much.

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I'm the one fucking this bitch, you're just holding the camera.

I got no problems with slideshows. Did you play Lair of the Shadow Broker for ME2? Beating that gives you access to a metric boatload of information about your teammates. No cinematics, no voice acting. Just text.

I ate that shit up.

I just think Starchild is dumb. I don't need a reason for the Reapers to exist. They said in the first game that the reason for them destroying us is beyond our comprehension. WORKS FOR ME. They are an invincible supervillain with motives we will never truly understand. That alone makes them a great antagonist but then they try to explain stuff and they don't explain it well and absolutely nothing you did leading up to this point makes a damn difference and you can't call him out on his bullshit without damning the galaxy and it contradicts the point of Sovereign trying to open the Citadel in the first game and it tries to insist that the whole point of the games was synthetics vs organics and Shepard just HAS TO DIE. That's something that really gets me about modern anything these days. The hero has to die. Everything has to be gritty and dark and the hero has to die. Why? I don't need the hero to die to feeeeeeeeeeeeeel for them. Sure let there be an ending where Shepard dies, but I stopped Saren, killed Sovereign, shot down a Human/Reaper embryo, blew up the Collector base, and ended century-old conflicts between Krogans/Turians and Quarians/Geth. Why can't we all just be happy.

So what if Shepard just died right there staring at earth as the Crucible destroyed the Reapers? Would you have been pissed then because he died? It seems like you're upset with the ending because of everything after activating the Citadel to open. What about the ending you get if you destroy the Reapers where you're given a hint that Shepard survived? That one seems to make a lot of people angry.
I don't mind endings that don't go the way you want them to. There's too many happy endings out there and this was a trilogy that was supposed to end. If it has to end with the main character dying, it doesn't bother me.
There's also theories out there that this isn't real at all and it's all Shepard being indoctrinated, which some are pretty sound. That's what I like about media, if it means that much to people and everything isn't explained, they'll search and find their own. I loved it in Prometheus and I loved it in this game before they came out with the extended cut. Besides, Bioware said they weren't changing the endings, so if there were people that had a problem with them, they shouldn't have downloaded the extended cut, because it didn't change all that much, just gave closure to what happened to the people in your journey throughout the games. I think these guys deserve a break from Mass Effect anyway because I'm sure the staff was moving onto another game before everyone started bitching about the ending and had to put another game on halt to come back and get all the voice actors back in the studio to make these extra scenes. I'm happy with them and that's the way I'll stay.

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I'm the one fucking this bitch, you're just holding the camera.

Really the only problem with the endings (aside from starchild) was the gaping plotholes and questions that made it feel rushed. It was like EA was trying to meet a quota and forced Bioware to wrap a game up that didn't have a proper ending yet. Having them add the epiloque scenes and filling in the holes was enough to make the endings much more acceptable. But I can't help but agree with Cowbox and Chaoticfox, the starchild and reasoning behind the Reapers is rather dimwitted and badly written. Just glad I now know why the Normandy was in the middle of a job, how Liara and Garrus got back on the ship during the shitstorm charge and some actual closure after all that hard work. I hate to think that they would just end it and not even give a hint as to what happens next with your crew, the alliance and everything else you've done not in this game but throughout the series.

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"I want to be the one to fight against you, Dr. Wily~

lol

I just came across this and kind of chuckled a bit.

All the endings were terrible except the secret fourth ending...because it was the only one not resolved with deus ex machina.

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You know that "deus ex machina" literally means god from the machine. Kinda odd that it was used literally.

I like the extra exposition. I destroyed the reapers, because that option kills the shiny boy. It's also Shepard's explicitly stated mission. And the third "best" option is just crap. Altering every living thing's DNA without consent is kind of evil.

Filling the plotholes made things much smoother for me. I'm not pissed off anymore, so I guess I'm ready to move to something else.

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"My job? Toilets 'n boilers, boilers 'n toilets. Plus that one boilin' toilet. Fire me if'n you dare. "

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Rest in peace Trevor

I agree with Cowbox that there didn't need to be an explanation for the reapers and why they are destroying stuff, but if they were going to explain they could have come up with literally any other theory or reason and for fuck's sake the god child just needs to be trashed I don't care if they take him out and all you saw was Shepard go into the citadel and blow it up and that's the end, is that a shitty ending? Yes but it's better then just having some ghost AI child come in and basically say " Hey you know all that work you did? Yea it was for nothing haha! *EA Troll Face* "