Yet another post about Mass Effect 3

No, I won't let it go.

See unlike 1% of the fanbase, I am unsatisfied by the ending. But unlike the other 99% of the fanbase (that didn't romance Thane or Jacob), I don't for one moment fall into the "that game was awesome except for the last five minutes" camp.

Truthfully, the Mass Effect franchise peters out after the first act of 3.  The quarian/geth conflict is Battlestar Galactica writ large, but as the writers of BSG (perhaps) understood, it's freaking difficult to empathize with people when you can't see their faces. (Yes, yes, the reason the Cylons look like us is because of terrorism and whatnot, but it also means that by the end of the series you're empathizing with Athena and Caprica-Six, at least in theory.)

Seriously, the first time I did Tali's loyalty mission back in 2, the only things I remembered about Zaal'Koris vas Qwib Qwib was that he wore a rediculous pink spacesuit and he had a very silly ship name. Which admiral was all for war with the geth? Why should I care? They're all a bunch of faceless political jackals trying to wreck my crewmate's life.

And don't even get me started about that TRON- style sidequest with Legion in 3. That was the most boring part of a Mass Effect game since Thane's loyalty mission, and at least that one you could fail.

And then there's the Fall of Thessia and all the fallout from that, about how this is supposedly Shepard's darkest hour. I don't know, I figured Shepard's darkest hour was back when they died, or when their love interest didn't trust them anymore. Not when some world I've never been to before falls to the Reapers because the stupid space elves that run it couldn't be bothered to tell me about their big secret before now because the game needed to be padded out or something.

But why does the Fall of Thessia matter so much? Because it's Liara's home, and unless you had a Shakarian import, the third game pretty much throws her at you by shafting your other romance options. We get it, BioWare, you love your blue-skinned space babe. If only you didn't have to flatten every other character in the galaxy. If only your plot twists occasionally made sense. If only you'd realized how unbelievably stupid your original ending (I swear I've already done a post about this) was earlier.