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

[BRC]

Now we're on to the interesting topic of the levels of player vs. author ownership of the protagonist in video game stories, which could fill a whole thread by itself. This is why I'm so disappointed with Bioware in ME3 BTW, because it was something they did well for their type of stories.

The Bioware type of game story has to be on a mostly linear path, with maybe a big decision right at the end of each chapter/module. But when the Bioware story is told well, it leaves a level of ambiguity as to the motivations of the protagonist. At the start of Baldur's Gate 2 the player needs to go to Spellhold, but the reason is a mix of the villain has kidnapped the PC's childhood friend, revenge against the villain for torturing the PC, and the vague promise of unlocking more power in the PC. The PC still has to go to Spellhold to complete the game but the motivation in the player's mind can be whichever of those they like.
With ME3, I was going into the game thinking that Shepard had the fixel goal of "Stop the Reapers", but Bioware missed a trick by forcing their version of Shepard rather than playing with that idea. Is Shepard motivated more by a desire to protect Earth or protect the galaxy? Revenge or Shepard's set of ideals?

Once you bring in Voice Acting, the entire thing changes. Voice acting really brings a character to life, I was able to attach to Shepard much easier than I was able to attach to my voiceless Warden in DA:O, but it adds a development constraint that pure text lacks.

The simple fact is that Bioware can't just ask the player "Well, what motivates YOUR Shepard", and build the character around that. The closest they can get is to provide options. The more options they provide, the more chance they have of letting you build the Shepard you imagined, but the more limited they are in what they can do with them.
And really, whether Shepard is motivated by revenge, a desire to save earth, a desire to save everybody, or a desire to bang a member of every sentient species, her actions are going to be the same: Try to raise an army and defeat The Reapers.

I thought that was where they were going with all the talk of the horrible calculus of war in the game. At the beginning I thought Bioware was going to throw some terrible decisions at Shepard, and TIM and Cerberus's role was to offer the completely amoral choices that you might have to take in order to win the war without losing Earth. And while they did with the genophage quest and the Quarian/Geth conflict resolution, that was it really, and doing the heartless renegade options for the genophage quest didn't make a massive difference anyway.

I thought the Tuchanka and Rannoch sections were very good, but in different ways.

With Tuchanka, personally there was no question about it, I was going to help Wrex. So, for me the Tuchanka story was about how, even when the path is clear, there are going to be casualties and consequences. The Dalatrass had a point, not enough of one to convince me, but she DID have a point. So for me Tuchanka emphasized the split of Paragon and Renegade, the Paragon tries to inspire others by example, and in doing so risks everything. The Renegade assumes that people will be greedy and selfish, and responds in kind, missing opportunities in order to avoid disaster.

Also Renegade punches people in the face, but that's window dressing.

Rannoch was about the brutal calculus of war. It was about the path not being clear. I think that making the player choose to sacrifice one side before telling them that both can be saved (With a sufficient Paragon/Renegade score) is one of the smartest decisions they made. I agonized over that decision. I hated the Quarians for forcing me to make it, but I understood why they did! Do the Geth deserve to die for the crime of defending themselves? No they don't. Do the Quarians deserve to die for believing the lies their ancestors told themselves? No, no they don't. But here I was being asked to condemn one side to destruction. On one side I had Tali, my faithful companion, on the other I had Legion, the spokesman for a people sentenced to death for the crime of existing. I looked desperately for the option that let me save them both, but it was not there.

And then I made my choice, and I had another chance. I selected the Paragon option and I danced in my dorm room as I savored the glory of having everything.

And then I realized I had gotten everything in more than one sense. I had experienced the agony of being forced to choose between two horrific options and the jubilation of triumph. It acknowledged both the brutal calculus of war and the hope of peace.

Really, what Bioware mastered with Mass Effect was the ability to use interaction to get the audience invested. Just as Shepard was in part My Shepard, Garrus was in part My Garrus, Tali was My Tali, that was My Joker piloting My Ship, that was My Grunt leading Arlak Squad, that was My Jack yelling at Ramirez, that was My Zaeed being the only one to make it out of a job alive (because he killed the others). That was My Thane going out with dignity, My Mordin sacrificing himself to wipe away his people's greatest crime, dying with a song on his lips and a smile on his face. That was My Wrex gazing into the future, ready to save his species even if it meant headbutting the genophage into submission.



I think this is why the whole Little Kid thing failed to work. The Kid was supposed to represent Shepard's Failure, but Shepard never failed to protect the kid. Shepard saw the kid twice and then saw the kid die. We're supposed to feel like we failed, but there was never a chance to succeed.

Here's what they should have done. Don't have the Kid crawl away into the ducts, scrap the whole thing about the kid being a potential hallucination.

Imagine this for a sequence, right at the beginning of the game.

Shepard: What's your name.
Kid: T-Thomas.
Shepard: Hello Thomas, I'm going to get you out of here.

Shepard then lifts Thomas up, holding the crying, scared child in one arm and a pistol in her other hand. You move across the battlefield, shooting down Husks and Cannibals. Eventually, you reach a shuttle.

If you took too much damage during the fight, then Thomas is wounded. He dies in Shepard's arms as you reach the shuttle. If not, then he thanks Shepard and boards the shuttle. The shuttle takes off and flies away, only to get cut down by a Reaper's beam (Just like it did in the game now).

I think adding that sequence would have made the Little Kid sequences so much more powerful. Right now the Kid is just some Kid Shepard saw. There was nothing we could do to save them. He's not our failure, just a casualty.

However, by making us work to save the kid, the game makes us invested in him. Even if we try as hard as we can, even if we do everything right, we can't save everybody.

Honestly I suspect Mac Walters was aiming to completely screw over the entire Mass Effect universe (because it makes the ending more "artistic" ) and Bioware's now backpeddling now they've realised how hard it hit the hardcore fans.

Yeah, that's my theory. It makes no sense to destroy the Relays if you're just going to have everything be hunky-dory afterwards.
That or the Cinematics team saw "shot of energy beam exploding through the relays" and though it meant "Shot of energy beam exploding the relays", and by the time people realized it was easier to add a line to the Starchild's dialogue than to redo the cutscene.