Before I get going, I’m going to have to make it clear that I for one still like halo and still have a lot of faith in 343I. It’s hard not to, the evidence of quality is in the game, but there are too many flaws for me to stay quiet. I am a veteran of Halo, a regular fan since '03 and an avid fan to this day. Capable of exceptional feats in Halo 3 and Reach, I know I’m not just some whiner complaining about a game I’m not good at, because I’ve proven to myself that I can perform even in Halo 5, even if it’s as inconsistent as possible.
Halo 5 is a fun game, but it is heavily flawed. The overarcing story of the Halo franchise is now aimless and haphazard, with sloppy writing. This is opposite of the old sense of the games, decent writing and good ideas surround the first three games, and even 4 had more than its fair share of great ideas and stellar moments. Halo 5’s story just doesn’t line up with what the extensive universe before it. This, however is not my focus.
My focus is the design of halo as a first person shooter. Admittedly, as much as I still play the game, this aspect of Halo 5 is the least like a halo from the main titles. Everything is off, from the pace of the movement, the flow of the maps, the firing rates of the weapons, the way aiming works, all of it just doesn’t line up. It’s bad practice to take a long time to kill game and try to make it overly fast paced. The times to kill are disgustingly short, and the weapons just not reliable enough for a casual player to experience any sucess. As a college student and full-time-worker, I don’t have the time nor energy to sit down and play halo 45+ hours a week like I did in high school, so while i have a hand for FPS games, a talent for combat as a whole, I fit the casual end of gaming here, as for many people just being used as canon fodder because of the pointlessly obscuring learning curve.
To name only a few of the inherent issues, the cluttered maps and clunky controls don’t lend themselves to the classically smooth and fluid games of halo’s past. Combine that with incredible movement speed, and there are corridors that would have been viable combat zones in old games that we all just thruster dash past and never use. You cannot combine a long time to kill game with regenerating health and shields with this much movement speed and weapon pace. It doesn’t add up well or intuitively. More shields than health is backwards from what makes sense in the halo universe.
Sprint is one of the main concerns of mine. It’s a great mechanic in other games, allowing for cool and innovative add-ons to the feature. It doesn’t work in halo, especially with the long times to kill and the already too-fast-for-sensibility movement speed.
A lot of very good players, friends of mine, agree with me that these basic aspects just do not work properly for a compelling game. A lot of us keep playing because of our friends, our love for halo, and the every-so-often good game and good time that this still-well-crafted game has to offer. I’d like to see these things adressed, a future update that does a total title update. A rebalance is needed for a game like this.
Do not mistake this as random Vitriol of angry players calling random aspects of the game BS out of rage or spite. Believe me, I could do that, but it is pointless and doesn’t get anything done.
As for the art style of the game, which you can’t just fix with an update, There seems to be a disconnect between different parts of the art design, as well as a disconnect with halo’s history. The art style makes this game feel like it’s in a different universe, totally removed at times from what made halo’s asthetics so appealing. The Mjolnir designs are senseless, lack a place for certain obvious features like where a car battery sized fusion battery would fit on the back, or the fact that the plating is really what defends the spartans, not a skin tight Gel suit. these skin tight and almost ‘skimpy’ armors just don’t make sense in any way, as much as they are, for the most part, aesthetically pleasing.
TL;DR please rebalance halo, Don’t make another one like 5, i lost my train of thought because I just woke up.
