History MassEffect3 / TropesEToK

* ExpositoryGameplayLimitation: The endgame is a longer version of this than most. [[spoiler:Shepard's movements are reduced to a slow stagger and all abilities are disabled, courtesy of a near miss from ''Harbinger's'' main gun. Shepard's armor is burned to a crisp and they're severely injured.]]

* HumongousMecha: {{Justified}}: the usual SquareCubeLaw issues are negated by use of element zero. Multiple battles take place on foot against Destroyer-class Reapers, which are 160-200 meter tall ships that are built out of the "lesser" species of each cycle. The Sovereign-class Reapers are a whopping ''2 kilometers'' in length, dwarfing even the largest ships in the Council and Alliance fleets.

** The contentious reveal of Tali's unmasked appearance was also retconned in the Legendary Edition, giving her a new look entirely.

** The Legendary Edition also makes several small edits to the final sequence where [[spoiler:the Catalyst explains each of the three choices. In the original version, the Control ending cuts away to the Illusive Man performing the action, as it was the solution he wanted, similar to Anderson being shown performing the Destroy ending action. Likely as a result of many players being turned off by visually comparing the ending to the Illusive Man, who was confirmed to be indoctrinated and just a scummy guy all around, the LE instead cuts away to the blue Control wave sweeping across Earth. Additionally, the Synthesis ending originally had no cutaway, making it stand out compared to the other two options. The LE adds a shot of the Citadel firing the green Synthesis beam towards the Sol mass relay.]]
** Averted in the Legendary in regards to prerendered cutscenes. The original games ran at 30 frames per second and the cutscenes were rendered at the same frame rate. Commander Shepard's features are set by the player, so any sequence where Shepard's face is visible has to be rendered in-engine. But Legendary Edition can run at 60 FPS in performance mode, including in-engine cutscenes. Getting the prerendered cutscenes up to 60 FPS would have required an enormous amount of work (and on release, would only have been seen by players who switched to performance mode) and so were left unaltered. This makes any sequence that cuts between in-engine and prerendered shots ''very'' obvious which is which. The ending does this very conspicuously, switching repeatedly between the two. This is made all the more obvious if Legendary Edition is played on a ninth generation console, where the extra processing power means the whole game will run at 60 FPS whether it's in performance mode or not.

* {{Feelies}}: The vanilla physical edition has a reversible cover, with the options of male or female Shepard.

** Javik, the Prothean Avatar of Vengeance, was to wait out the extinction of the Prothean Empire with one million other Protheans in stasis pods hidden on Eden Prime, intending to awake once the Reapers had returned to dark space, then uplifting and conscripting the primitive races (humanity and contemporaries) to re-arm for the next cycle's end. Unfortunately, Reaper assaults on the bunker damaged their sensor equipment and the VI managing the stasis pods felt that it was too dangerous to wake the pods without being sure that the Reapers had left, so it decided to keep all pods active until a new species discovered them. As time progressed and power began to run out, the VI deactivated the pods one by one until only Javik was left alive to be woken by Shepard.
*** Leading Garrus to half-seriously suggest that if the war with the Reapers goes south, they could always take a page out of the Prothean's book and [[SealedBadassInACan freeze Shepard]] to pick up the fight in another 50,000 years time?

** This is also the case for [[spoiler:the Asari government, hoarding the information from a Prothean beacon in order to maintain the Asari's position as the most advanced race in the galaxy.]]

--> '''Shepard''': Conrad, I'm building an Ancient Prothean Dark Energy device to stop the Reapers. [[SarcasmMode Can you help with that?]]
--> '''Conrad''': Well I did write my doctoral dissertation on Xenotechnology and Dark Energy Intergration.
--> '''Shepard''': *{{Beat}}* ''Really?''

** You have to choose between the total extermination of either the geth or the quarians at the hands of the other over the skies of their homeworld, [[spoiler: However, it is possible to TakeAThirdOption, but you'll have to set a lot of ground work in the previous game and then transfer that save to even open the possibility]].

* EasilyForgiven: When Shepard manages to forge peace between the Quarians and the Geth, the Geth are very eager to help the Quarians settle on Rannoch, despite the Quarians being the clear agressor in their war, with the intent to exterminate the Geth. This is explained by the Geth's BlueAndOrangeMorality; They are created and programmed to serve the Quarians, but becoming self-aware made them act in self-defense against the Quarians. When the Quarians ceased their hostilities, the Geth reverted to their original objective, which is helping the Quarians.

** Easy for you, the player, but not necessarily in-narrative. EDI says that once you get Krogan support to help the Turians, you're first going to need a fleet of ships to transport the krogan ground troops as the krogan have no fleet of their own. They are also going to need to bring food they can eat since life on Palaven is dextro-amino-acid based (or survive on what they've got in their hump). They'll also need sedatives as krogan get antsy and fight with each other when in the cramped conditions of a spaceship. You're not the only one doing the impossible when you're trying to get a krogan army to help the turians.

** Should you [[spoiler: continue a relationship with Kaidan before the Cerberus Coup mission]], female Shepard will grab an eyeful of Kaidan's butt as they both board the ''Normandy'' after you re-recruit him.

** The battle between the Geth and Quarian races becomes this for the planet Rannoch. [[spoiler: Any action that doesn't dissolve this feud will lead to one side wiping out the other to the point of extinction. Since Leigion and Tali are part of their respective race, you could potentially lose ''both'' of them (if they survive the previous game, and you side with the Geth here), but literally any outcome, good or bad, will lead to Leigion's death.]]

* FutileHandReach: Shepard to [[spoiler:[[TearJerker Tali]]]] if Shepard [[spoiler:allows Legion's upload to the geth fleet and fails to convince the quarians to break off their attack, resulting in the Migrant Fleet's [[CurbStompBattle complete annihilation]]. A Paragon interrupt comes close to making it not futile, but even it can't stop Tali from being DrivenToSuicide]].

** The best outcome of the Rachni storyline requires you to [[spoiler:have saved the queen in the first game and then saved her again in this game. Then, if Grunt is loyal, he will survive as well netting you a total of 125 in War Assets. If you killed the rachni queen in ''Mass Effect'' you're better off saving the Aralakh Company instead as the queen's replacement is a Reaper construct who can't be trusted, but the total score is not as high as it would've been if you had the rachni on your side.]]

** On a remote planet, a Batarian survey team discovered a Reaper corpse, which "disappeared" when one of their capital ships visited the system a short while later. They then denied that the corpse ever existed, despite video evidence from the other races. It turns out the Batarians took it back to their homeworld for study, where it indoctrinated several scientists and officials who then sabotaged their planet's defenses when the rest of the Reapers showed up. The Batarians became the first civilization to fall to the Reapers' invasion.

** The [[spoiler:Asari]] turn out to be huge hypocrites after its revealed that they've been [[spoiler: hiding an intact Prothean beacon on their homeworld. Keeping all its knowledge for themselves to maintain a technological advantage over everyone else. While passing laws forcing all of the Citadel races to share any beacons they find.]]

** The Legendary Edition also makes several small edits to the final sequence where [[spoiler:the Catalyst is explaining each of the three choices. In the original version, the Control ending cuts away to the Illusive Man performing the action, as it was the solution he wanted, similar to Anderson being shown performing the Destroy ending action. Likely as a result of many players being turned off by visually comparing the ending to the Illusive Man, who was confirmed to be indoctrinated and just a scummy guy all around, the LE instead cuts away to the blue Control wave sweeping across Earth. Additionally, the Synthesis ending originally had no cutaway, making it stand out compared to the other two options. The LE adds a shot of the Citadel firing the green Synthesis beam towards the Sol mass relay.]]

* FreezeFrameBonus: [[spoiler:In the various endings, the camera shows a close-up of the leaves on a jungle planet tree where Joker parks the ship after the Crucible beam finishes sweeping through the galaxy. In the Destroy and Control endings, the leaves are normal. However, the Synthesis endings shows them having faint cybernetic lines pulsing through them, revealing that the Synthesis beam was so precise that it even genetically altered plantlife to be partially synthetic.]]

** The Legendary Edition also makes several small edits to the final sequence where [[spoiler:the Catalyst is explaining each of the three choices. In the original version, the Control ending cuts away to the Illusive Man performing the action, as it was the solution he wanted, similar to Anderson being shown performing the Destroy ending action. Likely as a result of many players being turned off by visually comparing the ending to Illusive Man, who was confirmed to be indoctrinated and just a scummy guy all around, the LE instead cuts away to the blue Control wave sweeping across Earth. Additionally, the Synthesis ending originally had no cutaway, making it stand out compared to the other two options. The LE adds a shot of the Citadel firing the green Synthesis beam towards the Sol mass relay.]]

** The Legendary Edition also makes several small edits to the final sequence where [[spoiler:the Catalyst is explaining each of the three choices. In the original version, the Control ending cuts away to the Illusive Man performing the action, as it was the solution he wanted, similar to Anderson being shown performing the Destroy ending action. Likely a result of many players being turned off by visually comparing the ending to Illusive Man, who was confirmed to be indoctrinated and just a scummy guy all around, the LE instead cuts away to the blue Control wave sweeping across Earth. Additionally, the Synthesis ending originally had no cutaway, making it stand out compared to the other two options. The LE adds a shot of the Citadel firing the green Synthesis beam towards the Sol mass relay.]]

* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: The Extended Cut is most added footage to help clarify the intended endings, including an expanded epilogue to give elaboration on your choice in the climax. But there are some re-worked scenes that change what was in the original game, some overtly different ([[spoiler: the mass relays are damaged rather than destroyed]]) and some cosmetic (showing specific war assets you've gathered as part of the united fleet).