Did Mass Effect 3 get high scores because many critics didn't finish it?

just because it doesn't have a fairtale ending, it doesn't make it a bad one

"Choice doesn't matter in Mass Effect 3"

Your past decisions in previous Mass Effect games have a great effect on your playthrough in ME3. Just because every single choice you've made isn't reflected by the last 5 minutes of the series, that doesn't mean choice did not matter. By the time you start up the Cerberus assault, everything felt wrapped up. You've dealt with the genophage controversy. You've ended the Geth/Quarian conflict (some way or another). Most importantly though, most if not all of the characters in the series received closure by the time you come back to Earth.

The battle to take back Earth was all about the big picture---the fate of the Galaxy. It's impossible for a lot of the small choices you've made to actually directly impact your ending. However, they were almost all reflected indirectly. The War Assets system is brilliant in the sense that it works well to encompass all your decisions. It also makes sense----The more scientists/workers you have building the Crucible, the better the build quality of the weapon. The better the quality of the Crucible, the better your chances of controlling it's energy when it is released (and thus potentially stopping it from backfiring, as Liara mentioned early on.) Even the war assets that don't directly go into building the crucible help indirectly to defend it from the Reapers. The extra fleets would draw fire away from the Crucible, again increasing the likelihood of it being a successful, working weapon.

Looking back, every Mass Effect game before ME3 also ended very similarly. Mass Effect 1 always ended the same way. Mass Effect 2 had 2 different endings, one where you can either keep the Collector's base or destroy it....Either way the cinematics weren't entirely different. In Mass Effect 3, at the end you get 3 choices...And even though they get made fun of because the cinematics "look similar," they actually ARE different endings. With each ending there are different tiers depending on how high your war assets are.If your war assets are low, Earth is devastated and your squadmates die. Everything about the ending seemed to make sense. The Catalyst wasn't just some random starchild. It's an actual AI that takes the form of the kid that Shepard felt sorry for, so that way Shepard wouldn't view the AI as a monster that kills without reason. Hell, even the Normandy scene makes some sense. Your squadmates didn't go up with you to the Citadel. It's not hard to imagine that Joker could have went to search for survivors and picked them up off-screen. No matter what way you decide to use the Crucible, its energy destroys all nearby spacecrafts (hence why in every ending, the Reapers are "swallowed" by the energy as it is initially being triggered). This explains why the Normandy was trying to escape the shockwave-looking energy. The Mass Relays being destroyed by the Crucible also has an entirely different effect than slamming an asteriod into it, which is why it didn't destroy the galaxy. The energy isn't being released into the system, it's being focused and shot out to other relays. =/ I digress.

It's really counter-productive to "hope" that the indoctrination theory is actually true. That would mean that only ONE choice lets you finish the game, since it entirely depends on the whole "choose to destroy the reapers so you can wake up!!" idea. The endings also get criticized because there is simply a lot interpretation involved in actually comprehending the meanings. Yet...the indoctrination theory is entirely speculative.

I don't think the ending is perfect by any means..I would have liked a boss battle with Harbinger, or even more dialogue with the Catalyst. However, I think the entire "retake Mass Effect 3 endings" movement is hysterical and pathetic IMHO.

I disagree with that 100% and we'll never see eye to eye on the matter. Did you play the Arrival DLC for ME 2? If you did, you would know that the destruction of a Mass Relay is so powerful that it wipes out an entire star system, now, imagine EVERY SINGLE MASS RELAY in the Galaxy going off simultaneously, that would result the death of TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS of species, sentient and non-sentient. You can't destroy the Relays and say " Oh, but it has a different effect than slamming an asteroid into it".

The ending is a disgrace to a great series, not only that, but the auto dialogue was a bit poxy also. Again, if you were satisfied with, I'm glad for you, because I have no closure on series at all. I envy you, lol.

I'm not in the mood to argue because I'm dying here with a hangover, lets just say "different strokes for different folks".

The Mass Relays being destroyed by the Crucible also has an entirely different effect than slamming an asteriod into it, which is why it didn't destroy the galaxy. The energy isn't being released into the system, it's being focused and shot out to other relays.

Quote :

You can't destroy the Relays and say " Oh, but it has a different effect than slamming an asteroid into it".

The Mass Relays exploded, releasing energy outward, exactly like the one in Arrival

The Crucible destroyed it...Not a big f*cking rock.. You don't see the energy being released outward...You see the energy being shot to other relays. Yea, there is an explosion when the relay was destroyed....but it wasn't anything comparable to a Super Nova like in the Arrival DLC.

Guys, it is a plot hole that bioware didnt think of(most likely).if the relays were destroyed like in arrival, then earth would not be standing after the ME3 ending.but of course we know that this is false.so it is logical to assume that the crucible "magically" made the mass relays explode without destroying an entire system like in Arrival.its illogical and doesnt make sense, but it is what happened.

Synthesis makes the least sense to be honest. Since Mass Effect 1 i wanted to destroy the reapers, so that's what I ended up doing at the end of the trilogy