Once I started up Halo 2 Anniversary I thought it’d be a blast to run through it on Heroic like I used to, so I could get some challenge without too much frustration. I’m no stranger to the games, I’ve played and replayed them numerous times on all difficulties. However right off the bat I noticed several things that would quickly get on my nerves.
*The damage I could take was incredibly small compared to the original Halo 2’s Heroic.
*I died numerous times due to friendly fire and inept friendly A.I. (For example, allies would refuse to ride in vehicles like the specter or warthog, getting shot in the back by marines, etc.)
*Enemy A.I. was so accurate and dangerous that it felt like I was playing Legendary, especially on Aribter’s missions with massive amounts of Flood.
In short, my work of completing the game quickly became snail’s pace due to these issues which I remember being non existent in the original game.
To double check and make sure my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me, I booted up Halo 2 on my 360 and played the same missions on Heroic with massive differences. Next I compared Legendary, which on Anniversary was even more exceedingly brutal than the original. In H2A you can only take roughly 3 or 4 shots before your shields drop and are killed, whereas in the original it took several more shots to bring your shields down. It was still very difficult and I died numerous times, but there was a huge change. Trying to fight the brutes at the start of the gravemind level was nearly impossible in H2A, I couldn’t even move before being gunned down. The original also saw to my death, but after my shields held out long enough to make it to some form of cover.
Lastly, I tried to play normal difficulty on Anniversary, which brought problems of it’s own. To put it bluntly, the A.I. on normal is remarkably inconsistent and perhaps the most broken of all the difficulty levels. Enemies would occasionally stare at walls completely unaware of my presence as I mowed down others. Not only that, but enemies will just stand and stare at me face to face, taking perhaps 5 to 10 seconds to start shooting, only to miss half their shots at nearly point blank range.
Keep in mind, as I played I did not judge the difficulty on how much I died or my own skills. I focused solely on my shield levels and how quickly they were brought down before being defenseless and A.I. behavior. I’m not sure whether some of these changes were intentional or the result of more poor coding. If it was intentional I wholeheartedly disagree with the decision. There were already 4 well rounded difficulty levels for people to choose how they wanted to play, with the game in the state it’s currently in the curve is incredibly cheap.
Also note that this is only what I found in Halo 2, and have no idea if this problem is consistent in the other games. In any case I feel these issues should also be on the priority list of fixes if they aren’t already. I wouldn’t go as to far to say the campaign is unplayable, but it is incredibly frustrating and disappointing to play. I would like to thank 343 for working hard to fix The Master Chief Collection already, I only hope these issues get looked into as well.