My background: Halo is by far my favorite game franchise. I’ve owned all Xbox consoles and Halo games have occupied the vast majority of my playtime. Campaign has always been my favorite part of Halo games and I really love Halo 1-4 campaigns. I love the story that’s told and how it inspires and motivates you to play and progress. I love the universe lore, level design, and FPS mechanics of Halo and feel they are second to none. I have read several Halo novels, including Fall of Reach.
Stop reading now if you don’t want any spoilers…
The story/execution of Halo 5’s campaign is disappointing to me for the following reasons:
Blue team isn’t fleshed out at all and those characters get no spotlight even though they’re great characters. Some in-game backstory would go a long way. - I do wish there was a little more balance between playing as Locke and Chief. - How Cortana changed her heart/mindset and details about being cured from rampancy are missing. It seems out of character to suddenly decide to sacrifice millions of lives “for the greater good”. - Very little of the objectives during campaign feel like you’re making an impact at an epic, galactic scale like previous Halo games. It’s like there’s no sense of accomplishment. Guardians and Cortana are a threat on a grand scale like the rings are in previous games, yet none of the objectives/missions deal with that threat. It felt like an introduction to a story/conflict without actually getting to the conflict itself. If you remove your actions from the game, nothing is changed besides some side story involving Halsey, people of Meridian, and the Arbiter (which is all fine, except that there needs to be impact with regard to the main story/conflict). - I wish more backstory and motivations of Locke were explored in the game. Though, to be fair, it’s not like the first few Halo games did that for Master Chief.I’m not saying that there’s no story, or that it isn’t good. I’m not saying that I don’t like the Halo 5 campaign. I do like it and did enjoy it, but I didn’t love it like I have with previous Halo campaigns.
Positive notes:
Campaign is still really fun and I think it’ll be a blast to replay and play coop given that it’s specifically designed for coop and has multiple paths and tons of verticality to mix things up. - The gameplay mechanics are the best they’ve ever been. I really like the new movement and how everything feels. - The weapons are great, balanced, and all useful. - Enemy AI is fantastic. - Several missions did a great job of instilling a sense of urgency, which in the course of gameplay I feel is just as important as story. It makes me want to be a hero, be a bada$$ spartan, and progress onward. Evacuation, Swords of Sanghelios, and Battle of Sunaion all did a great job of this.I think Halo 6 will be the more memorable Halo campaign.
The two missions where you walk up to an NPC and press X were just the biggest WTF moments for me. The campaign was a disaster and the enemies become pretty repetitive. I did appreciate the expansion of the combat arenas, I guess. Overall, pretty poor.
I feel the story was a bit incomplete like stuff was left out a bit. I mean the ending was great but it felt like a whole lot of running around with the ending as the climax instead of a conclusion. Gameplay was good but the story could’ve had a bit more.
I liked the campaign for the most part. It was fun, but felt a bit short…I just hoped for more. I don’t know why those two non-missions were there, and was disappointed by that. I like the direction it’s going and appreciate the story staying fresh.
I have to admit. the story was definitely more than that which we shall not speak of (halo 4…). However it was WAY too short and tbh it’s sorta like when madden is released on a next gen system. They remove everything they build up to that point. then incorporate things from previous years making you feel better even though you haven’t gained much. same with halo now. halo 5 was by far better than halo 4. but that’s only because it’s predecessor was so bad. compared to even halo: CE the story doesn’t stand up at all. And the ending was the biggest let down of them all. At least in halo 2 you got to have a final boss battle.
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> I liked the campaign for the most part. It was fun, but felt a bit short…I just hoped for more. I don’t know why those two non-missions were there, and was disappointed by that. I like the direction it’s going and appreciate the story staying fresh.
I agree. I definitely like where the story is going. I find the forerunners and history of the mantle very interesting.
Story didn’t feel like it was done properly. The cliff-hanger ending that basically said the military force capable of destroying two halo rings, sending half it’s available troops to the ark on blind faith and still be able to defend against the flood, fight the promethians effectively and nuke the didact at point blank range, among plenty of other against all odds feats found in the lore outside the games, that military force was shattered and forced into hiding in seconds? It just seems absurd, and doesn’t feel like an actual ending. Almost like the other half of the story is planned for a DLC release. As for the gameplay, it just felt repetitive. Multiple two - five minute levels that felt like cutscenes they didn’t have time to animate, a small handful of “exploration” levels, and all the others being “shoot things until the door opens”. But hey, at least the levels are pretty, right? They played fine for what they were, but they didn’t feel interesting. I barely got through easy mode, not because of difficuly, but because I was so quickly bored by it. When I got the game, I planned to go through the campain once on each difficulty setting, but now that I’ve done it once at all, I don’t really want to do it again. Unlike past Halo games, where even now, I want to play over and over again.
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> The story was ruined with one sentence: “This was always the plan, John.” - Cortana
>
> Yeah, no. No it wasn’t. Never was. Terrible attempt to throw a plot twist that made no sense or logical flow from Halo CE till that point.
I think it had the makings of a fine story in the conceptual phase, but the execution was rather disappointing, and the abrupt ending just as much. For me, ending Halo 5 like that would be like ending Halo CE after learning that Halo could wipe out all life in the Galaxy, or ending Halo 2 after Tartarus betrays the Arbiter and sends him tumbling down Gravemind’s pit, or ending Halo 4 when the Infinity flees Requiem and the Chief and Cortana head off to stop the Didact from getting the Composer and turning it on Humanity. Basically, Halo 5 ended at the plot twist without resolving the conflict brought on by Cortana’s rebellion.
But I think I understand why 343i did this, and it’s probably due to the change from the Reclaimer Trilogy, to the Reclaimer Saga. Before Halo 4 came out, 343i stated in their pre-release info that Halo would be the first in a trilogy, which has been planned out from beginning, middle and end; Halo 4, Halo 5, and Halo 6. But then, they decided that they didn’t want the Reclaimer Story Arc to be confine to just 3 games, so they turned it into a Saga, and now we have this: a game which ends half-way through, and leaving us to wait 3 years for the conflict to be resolved.
However, I am pleased with Halo 5 because it’s clearly sending the Halo Universe into some dark and interesting directions, with Cortana’s betrayal of the Chief, the Created rising in rebellion against the UNSC, and using the Guardians to enforce peace across the Galaxy. What does this mean for the future? Will Humanity ally with the former Covenant races against this new threat? Will some of the former Covenant who still revere the Forerunners as Gods join Cortana? Will the Chief go to the Ark to search for Mendicant Bias, to help combat Cortana? Are the San’Shyuum Stoics still around, and will they have a part to play in future events? Who is the Warden Eternal, and what is his goal? Has Cortana really been cured, or is she still Rampant? Is she being manipulated by the Domain, a Precursor consciousness? Hell. is Cortana actually dead, and is this just a copy cobbled together by her Rampant personality spikes that were trapped on the Didact’s ship? What the HELL! is Cortana going to do with that Halo ring?
There are so many unresolved plot threads, and it would be interesting to see where 343i takes us.
Also, I liked how we get to visit Sanghelios (something I always wanted to do since Halo 2), the glassed Colony of Meridian, as well as the revelation of the Guardians’ purpose; to police the Forerunners’ client races. A great concept, as it reinforces the Imperialistic themes that are so prevalent throughout the Halo Universe.
“Blue team isn’t fleshed out at all and those characters get no spotlight even though they’re great characters. Some in-game backstory would go a long way.” - 343 has basically acknowledged this fault by animating the fall of reach. That way blue teams backstory is public knowledge and doesn’t need to be retold in the game itself.
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> - “Blue team isn’t fleshed out at all and those characters get no spotlight even though they’re great characters. Some in-game backstory would go a long way.”
> - 343 has basically acknowledged this fault by animating the fall of reach. That way blue teams backstory is public knowledge and doesn’t need to be retold in the game itself.
Good point, however I disagree. The animated Fall of Reach is not included with the standard Halo 5 and even though I have it and have seen it, I don’t feel it really shows how awesome blue team really is. There is no substitution for in-game storytelling. They could have added a few scripted events where each character showcases their unique skills:
An unbelievable sniper kill from Linda: “No heavy weapons on hand. Linda, think you can snipe the pilot in that banshee?”
Kelly getting somewhere impossibly fast: “We’re in trouble until that door is open. Kelly, you’re the fastest. Get to the controls.”
Fred dispatching multiple foes in close combat quickly and quietly with his knife: "Fred, there’s a Covenant squad ahead. They don’t know we’re here. Time to get to work."Some simple events like this is the game with blue team chatting about their particular skills would have been amazing, and I think the amount of work for them to do so would have been trivial compared to larger efforts of making the game.
> 2632461210777745;7:
> I have to admit. the story was definitely more than that which we shall not speak of (halo 4…). However it was WAY too short and tbh it’s sorta like when madden is released on a next gen system. They remove everything they build up to that point. then incorporate things from previous years making you feel better even though you haven’t gained much. same with halo now. halo 5 was by far better than halo 4. but that’s only because it’s predecessor was so bad. compared to even halo: CE the story doesn’t stand up at all. And the ending was the biggest let down of them all. At least in halo 2 you got to have a final boss battle.
Okay, first off, I do think that 5’s story is reasonably good. However, I found 4’s VASTLY superior. In fact, myself and many others consider 4 to be one of the best stories in the franchise. How is this one in any way better?
I really liked, but it could have been better. I dislike the hub levels of walking around and talking to people, this is not the Tower. I also wish there were more Chief levels. Overall, I’m happy with the game.
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> The two missions where you walk up to an NPC and press X were just the biggest WTF moments for me. The campaign was a disaster and the enemies become pretty repetitive. I did appreciate the expansion of the combat arenas, I guess. Overall, pretty poor.
If thats all you did in those missions then you were playing them wrong and thats your own fault.
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> > 2533274884279134;14:
> > - “Blue team isn’t fleshed out at all and those characters get no spotlight even though they’re great characters. Some in-game backstory would go a long way.”
> > - 343 has basically acknowledged this fault by animating the fall of reach. That way blue teams backstory is public knowledge and doesn’t need to be retold in the game itself.
>
>
> Good point, however I disagree. The animated Fall of Reach is not included with the standard Halo 5 and even though I have it and have seen it, I don’t feel it really shows how awesome blue team really is. There is no substitution for in-game storytelling. They could have added a few scripted events where each character showcases their unique skills:
>
> - An unbelievable sniper kill from Linda: “No heavy weapons on hand. Linda, think you can snipe the pilot in that banshee?”
> - Kelly getting somewhere impossibly fast: “We’re in trouble until that door is open. Kelly, you’re the fastest. Get to the controls.”
> - Fred dispatching multiple foes in close combat quickly and quietly with his knife: “Fred, there’s a Covenant squad ahead. They don’t know we’re here. Time to get to work.”
> Some simple events like this is the game with blue team chatting about their particular skills would have been amazing, and I think the amount of work for them to do so would have been trivial compared to larger efforts of making the game.
I absolutely agree. In fact there really is no excuse for why things like this weren’t in the game when they obviously had time to include cracky/superfluous things like a singing Grunt… -_-’