This is not a rant about the ending. Instead, I wanted to make a short blog asking a different question.

What the hell happened to Harbinger?

My Pointless Rant

During the Horizon mission in Mass Effect 2, Harbinger was solidified as the Big Bad. It was menacing and ominous, with just the right amount of annoying. It taunted us throughout the game, telling us how insignificant we were, and how our actions were pointless. It was willing to posses drones through the Collector General to fight us personally, and when we killed the host, it tossed them aside. Harbinger even gave the typical "You haven't seen the last of me!" villain rant. It made any fire fight frustrating, and that made me want to kill it even more; I hated Harbinger. Many games fail to do that. Harbinger was an enemy which I looked forward to defeating. I had the desire to annihilate.

In Mass Effect 3, I got a codex entry and a cameo. Harbinger just swoops in at the last second and blows my friends and I to hell, then flies off. Personally, I would have loved to hear Harbinger's menacing monologue, it drove me on. I would have felt a deeper motivation to take the fight back to Earth if it told me how much destruction the Reapers were causing, how many lives were lost. I felt cheated when I got to the final mission, only to suddenly realise it was largely absent from the game.

Harbinger has been replaced. Replaced by the Illusive Man and Kai Leng. The former is an old acquaintance, albeit one now controlled by the Reapers. The latter is a space ninja from a terrible book.

I hate space ninjas.