Finished ME3 a week ago (took me a few weeks to start the game because Best Buy sucks at shipping games to APO addresses in a timely manner, and then I had this pesky job they kept expecting me to show up for five days a week…)
I rather liked the game. I even liked the ending, aside from the fact that it kinda came out of nowhere. Needed more foreshadowing, more plotting tying it together. Also would have been nice to see some of those allies I spent the whole game rallying together turn up in the final levels beyond a few cutscenes.
I’m not that upset about the lack of the “Where Are They Now?” sequence that shows that Wrex went on to be the proud father of his nation (in every sense that matters), that Garrus has become a motivational speaker, that Ash went on to lead the An’la’shok, that Liara sits alone and watches the sun rise every morning for the rest of her life, and that Javik became a massage therapist.
I just infer how things will continue based on how the questlines end. I got the “Vigil” theme from ME1 at the end of the Tuchanka and Rannoch campaigns, which I took to mean that those two groups would be OK when it was all done. There is some irony in that it’s the outcasts of the galaxy that have any chance of coming out doing well for themselves when all is said and done because the established powers are the ones that got piled on by the Reapers, and all of their homeworlds (Earth, Kar’Shan, Palaven, and Thessia) are in ruins.
Hm… the Salarians never got invaded that we saw. And they seemed (in my playthrough) to be the most outwardly bastardly group amongst the Council races. Go figure. Maybe the Reapers didn’t expect them to evolve so quickly when they made their plans? They used to lick their own eyes, after all.
I’m kinda surprised that they made Prothy the Prothean a DLC character, given that with the DLC installed, he integrates pretty tightly into the game, unlike a couple of DLC characters from ME2 (honestly, Zaeed, what do you bring to the table other than the accent and the Inferno Grenades?)
Also, if Garrus died in ME2, his replacement in ME3 is Marauder Sheilds. Fun fact.
As far as the Mass Relays going blooey at the end, there’s no reason they necessarily had to blow up with the same force as the Alpha Relay did. For one thing, the Alpha Relay was stated to be a unique relay, much more powerful than the other relays. I figure the relays blew up, but not nearly so destructively.
Thematically, the relays being destroyed actually makes some sense, as it was previously stated that the thing that helped doom galactic civilization was the fact that everybody was so dependent on the mass relays, that they all clustered around them like bugs on a bug zapper. It was time for everybody to set out on their own. Maybe build their own mass relays.
As far as the Quarians go, if it’s any consolation, their Civilian Fleet stayed at Rannoch with part of the Patrol Fleet. The folks fighting at Earth would have been the military personnel, so presumably a sizable chunk of the Quarians are now settling in on Rannoch with the Geth and figuring out what to do next.
I kinda liked the new scanning system, though it’s frustrating to go back to a system two or three times trying to find that last war asset hidden away there only to learn that I have a couple spare cans of fuel for the ship. It is kind of fun to keep dipping in and out of an occupied (and alert) star system to try and grab an asset before the Reapers can catch up.
Also, I’m not sure this has been said, but the music in this game is fantastic. Currently my favorite bit is the reprise of the Normandy’s theme when you finally get to see the second Normandy in Alliance colors.