Mass Effect 3.5B: Taste the Rainbow (Story and Ending Discussion; Spoilers!)

[Psyren]

Except it was never properly explained why, if the Starkid wanted Synthesis, it didn't try to build a Crucible itself instead of embarking on endless cycles of galactic genocide to stop evil synthetics from creating robot nirvana.

You're assuming he new how, or even that it was a possibility. He's pretty clearly a shackled AI.

But that's not how the ending presents it. Shepard isn't given the option to Renegade interrupt and destroy the Reapers the moment it's revealed how. You've got to sit and listen to the Starkid and accept the premise that you've got to take one of the three options the Starkid allows you to, accept death, and like it. It's all on the Starkid's terms.

It's these elements of presentation that really kills it. It would still be bad providing those options right at the end without proper foreshadowing, but the way it's presented as forcing them down the throat of Shepard makes it so much worse.

This is pure visceral emotion. You the player might feel better not having to listen to the rest of it, but what does Shepard gain by not hearing the thing out?

There's no functional difference between shooting the pipe before he tells you about Synthesis or after. You're still following his instructions. Which you have to do, because you have no idea how to activate the Crucible.

I'm curious. How does it make the Reaper threat worthless? They already pretty much nuked the entire galaxy. Only by your efforts that they are stopped. Who are we to deny those that put in more effort so that they can have their happy ending?

Cliche endings =/= bad endings. Similarly, !art ending =/= good.

Because every Mass Effect so far has ended with a choice, and you wouldn't find out which choice was the "good" choice until the following game. You know which one FEELS better (e.g. making Anderson councilor, or destroying the Collector Base,) but there was always the chance that doing the other might actually have been better. (Udina has more political skill, TIM has the technical expertise to extract something of real value for the galaxy from the intact base.) It's shades of gray like these that made ME great. So the mere fact that ALL of us had one goal in our head for the first 95% of the game - destroy the Reapers - then we get to the end and realize that might actually be the worst option, is a testament to how nuanced this game can actually be.