>Wake up.
>What, where am I?
>The Citadel, it's my home.
>Who are you?
>I am the Catalyst.
>I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst?
>No, the Citadel is part of me.
>I need to stop the Reapers. Do you know how I can do that?
>Perhaps. I control the Reapers. They are my solution.
>Solution... to what?
>Chaos.
>The Created will always rebel against their Creators. But we've found a way to stop that from happening - a way to restore order, for the next cycle.
>By wiping out Organic Life?
>No. We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone. Just as we left your people alive, the last time we were here.
>But you killed the rest.
>We helped them ascend, so they could make way for new life. Storing the old life in Reaper form.
>I think we'd rather keep our own form.
>No, you can't.
>Without us to stop it, Synthetics would destroy all Organics. We've created the cycle so that never happens. That's the solution.
It has been burned into my mind for 13 years. I try to remind myself that this part didn't matter, because it's ultimately about the memories, and the journey, not the thesis of the entire story, where it all was supposed to come together and amount to a higher sense of absolute cinema. I'll ignore that part, because everything else was so good. I'm glad I moved on.

Sure wasn't this game
>Protagonist acts like didn't hear what they learned in the previous games
>Reapers, the doomsday machine species take over Earth but their plot is known to be complete eradication of "advanced spacefaring civilization" every 50.000 years, including all other species than just Humans
>Protagonist wants to "stay on Earth and fight" knowing they're not here to conquer the planet
>A sad little child appears
>SAD PIANO MUSIC
>"Holy shit, you're telling me when all species go extinct, LITTLE BOYS ARE KILLED?" O H N O.
>You leave Earth to find alternatives while it's under fire
>Protagonist is still like "I'd RATHER STAY AND FIGHT" knowing that isn't the answer
>Old sidekick shows up
>We've found a superweapon. It might BE THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE REAPERS
>OH GEE. HOW CONVENIENT
>You find the weapon blueprint
>"We don't know what it does, or how it works
>You must GATHER ARMIES, so that you can waste them against the Reapers, so the device that we don't know how it works or what it even does will do something, THAT'S OUR PLAN.
>Space Jesus Protagonist stops Historic Centuries old Conflict to recruit Species #1 and #2
>Space Jesus Protagonist stops Historic Centuries old Conflict to recruit Species #3, #4 or both
>The richest rogue army in the galaxy with INFINITE resources stops you in you're path
>They steal the data on the Superweapon that you don't know what it does or how it works
>You defeat the dirty bastards
>The device has to dock with the Central Space Station to fire
>The Reapers just moved the Central Space Station to Earth. HOW CONVENIENT
>Your old mentor is like "We did it." We still don't know what the device does.
>The Child appears and explains the Reapers are just stopping things like Race #3 from killing Organic life, so the Reapers kill Organic Life every 50.000 years to prevent that.
>Protagonist has 3 options to replace the Reapers
>It's very hard. Who knows if Race #3 will become a THREAT TO ALL LIFE.
fucking trash.

Everyone shits on the ending, and rightfully so, but the truth is that the plot of ME3 was dogshit from the very beginning.

>The reapers can actually just fly to the milky way in the space of, if we assume they started right when Sovereign was destroyed, threeish years, and if it was when the collector base was destroyed, a few months

Well what were they doing when Sovereign was planning its takeover of the citadel then? Why bother with the Geth if Harbinger and the boys can back you up if you just wait a few years? And don't tell me they couldn't get in touch, because Harbinger's collector business didn't pick up until after the battle of the citadel so Harbinger obviously knew that Sovereign had failed.

>It spiritually doesn't even feel like Mass Effect anymore, and it wasn't the ending that caused that
Mass Effect 1 and 2 feel like the only "real" games to me.

>>715799387
This is the correct answer, but it shows that the series has a bigger problem now. They fucked up the modern portion of the games so hard that they have no solid foundation to fall back on to.
Its almost like removing the original writers with an actual vision and concept for how the story should progress basically kills the series.
Its telling that peoples fav entry past the original trilogy is the pirate game that just ditched the assassins shit entirely

>Be Me
>RPG Trilogy from a well known studio.
>Build up continuous narrative across 3 games.
>Constantly remark about how your choices matter and will effect the world state in the sequels
>Ending is only one of 3 possible outcomes that depends entirely on choices made in the last game.
>Be beloved a decade later.
>Be Witcher 3
pic unrelated