Halo 5, good or bad (and how?) SPOILERS

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

This is purely about story.

First some Cons:

  • Campaign was a little short, I hit around 7-8 hours.
  • Doctor Halsey’s lack of revenge, It was quite a cliffhanger in Spartan Ops and it just sort of disappeared. Though this is 8 months after Halo 4:Spartan Ops.
  • The advertising was misleading. For whatever reason, I never bought the advertising about Chief vs Locke, it seemed so obvious but a lot of people were mislead.
  • Warden****Eternal’s constant re-appearance.
  • Not making some reference to the Janus Key to let fans know that it has not been scrapped from the story, people suspect it is no longer canon.
  • Lack of Split Screen.

And now the Pros!

  • Musical score, incredible. The use of older melodies mixed with the new, nostalgic, awe-some and beautiful.

  • Theatricality and ambiance, the game felt eerie throughout the story instilling a sense of reverence and wonder. The 1st Hunter encounter was like in the novels, scary.

  • Locations, like in Halo 2 and 3, we were treated to one beautiful world after another. My favorite being Sunaion, a.k.a. Space Venice haha.

  • Story telling. Unlike Halo 4 which had so much so fast (a little overwhelming), Halo 5 was paced beautifully and the in-game dialogue helped players digest what was happening to our Heroes. Blue Teams debut mission was very much like the standard behind-the-scenes, covert op from the novels. Space, thrusters, secure sensitive information, exfil. Of course things went sideways (asset denial) but that made it more exciting. The story unfolds like you are reading a novel, very captivating.

  • Blue Team, our most beloved fireteam who we have hoped to see with Chief since we first learned of them in early 2000’s. My favorite moment was when we heard the “Olly Olly Oxen Free” signal on the console in mission Reunion. A great reference to the past. I love that they were introduced on a random Op and then reassigned to Meridian.
    Effective use of drama: Unlike Halo 4 where we were all made to hate Captain Del Rio, Halo 5 creates drama through immersion and in-game dialogue. Not to mention the fact that Locke and Chief don’t hate each other. Chief has an important mission which he knows he has to attend to (Cortana trusts him over anyone else, a different Spartan Team would only be in danger). Locke is following legitimate orders. There is nothing personal, this is why they are ‘friends’ at the end, because there was never anything personal between them. There are only sides of a battle, not right or wrong.

  • The build up to Halo 6. Yes we did not have many answers and that’s what Halo has always been about:
    Halo CE: The universe is how we understand- Surprise! Enter Halo and The Flood! Nothing is what you thought. Questions.
    Halo 2: Massive expansion to the Halo universe, we learn about Covenant society, about the Flood and Gravemind.
    Halo 3: We learn more about the origins of the Halos and their creators, and we wish to know about the origins of The Flood but there is no time. Activate the Halo. Questions! Is there a Shield World which still has Forerunners? What Forerunner planet chief is drifting to? Will We ever learn the true origins of the Flood? We are closer to finding the Forerunners than we have ever been.
    Halo 4: The planet is Requiem, a Dyson Sphere with an artificial core and synthetic sun, amazing! Lots of answers coming in, but only because we met The Librarian and she filled Chief and Cortana in on what was happening. There appears to be at least one Forerunner still alive.
    Halo 5: Much like the previous Halos, the wiser more advanced civilisations speak poetically and almost in third person. The game constantly hints that these civilisations were so advanced that lesser species would view them as Gods. The Ark, The Flood, Halos hovering over the heads of planets, Angelic Guardians as messengers from the ‘Gods’, Genesis, the themes in Halo 5 continue from previous games.

Discussion
Cortana: She is not evil. She is simply advanced enough to assume the mantle. Halo 5 is about the grey area between morals and ethics. Contemplating sacrifices for greater good, learning that good vs evil becomes irrelevant once you’re smart enough to realize that understanding alone must be the cause of action and all that matters are methods, choices (Didact: “All in life is choice”. Warden Eternal: “If you knew what she had become (Cortana), you would not speak of such juvenile things as home”) all of which deal with grey. Nothing is black and white (Didact: “Think of my acts as you will, but do not doubt the reality”).

People are complaining that she’s a typical villain choice (dead character comes back as the bad-guy). She’s not evil, though she is still clearly rampant and highly emotional which makes her potentially dangerous. The Didact was the most devoted to saving life in the universe against the flood, and he came back angry at humans for weakening the forerunner then lining up to take the mantle after their hard work! It’s almost the same but people are saying that 343 messed up in Halo 5…
Expanded Universe: True Halo fans will know that so many answers have been provided to us in other media; novels, comics, animated series. If you keep in touch with the Halo community, you will see some amazing theories exist about the Precursor species, about the origins of the Flood etc.

Character Development: Blue Teams character has been fully realized in the novels. Fireteam Osiris also have background on Locke (Halo: Nightfall) where he learns the qualities of being a proper spartan by meeting an ex-Spartan II and we know Buck since his debut in Halo 3 ODST. (He had an appearance in Halo 2 and Reach too).

Cliches: Halo is about taking cliches and making them awesome again. Chief, stoic, doesn’t talk much, the hero who always saves the day.
Ancient, advanced civilisations whose work we are rediscovering (ring a bell? Starcraft, Crysis, Assassin’s Creed, a.k.a. every sci-fi ever?).
Jul 'Mdama, the cliche ‘herp-derp’ enemy buffoon with his constantly being angry and treating subordinates like slaves. The moment in Spartan Ops when Thorne’s squad retrieve the Promethean Soul and Jul is on the ridge overlooking the battle (cliche), sacrificing his troops so freely (cliche bad guy), having a bumbling sidekick standing next to him asking him why he let it happen only so Jul can explain to the audience why he did it (plot cliche; convenient story telling) was so horrible. Special mention to the Elite that detonated his own elites with the bomb vest (how mediocre).

There is a lot more but that’ll do for now!

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> 2533274829679147;1:
> Cortana: She is not evil. She is simply advanced enough to assume the mantle. Halo 5 is about the grey area between morals and ethics. Contemplating sacrifices for greater good, learning that good vs evil becomes irrelevant once you’re smart enough to realize that understanding alone must be the cause of action and all that matters are methods, choices (Didact: “All in life is choice”. Warden Eternal: “If you knew what she had become (Cortana), you would not speak of such juvenile things as home”) all of which deal with grey. Nothing is black and white (Didact: “Think of my acts as you will, but do not doubt the reality”).

She’s f*cking delusional, and it’s time for deactivation.

3

Yeah I explained that in the next paragraph.

4

OP you need to hide a lot of that post with the spoilers hiding thing.

5

I don’t know whether to consider Cortana evil or insane, but she’s definitely not good. To me, she went past grey and right off the deep end when she destroyed multiple colonies, knowingly murdered countless people in her plan to essentially enslave all organic life under an Iron fist and steal the mantle from its rightful masters.

Whatever happened to cure her rampancy destroyed the true Cortana, even the Chief sees her as a threat. The rest of the Smart AIs except Exuberant Witness and Roland are little better.

6

Halo 5 is both. Good because of the story, bad because of lack of story.

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> 2535435715524492;5:
> I don’t know whether to consider Cortana evil or insane, but she’s definitely not good.

Yeah I can agree with that

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Cons:

  • I agree with the campaign length - Halsey’s “revenge” is kinda being handled in Escalation, albeit those first cutscenes were really jarring all things considering - Agree on misleading advertising - Warden Eternal is easily one of the worst things about Halo 5 (Fighting him) - I’m pretty sure that the Janus Key/Absolute Record will have absolutely no relevance to the story at all. I imagine it originally factored largely into Halo 5’s plotline but was tossed aside after Spartan Ops Season 2 was relegated into EscalationPro’s:

  • Agreed on Music, Ambiance, Locations - Let’s be fair, Halo 5 was paced terribly. Halo 4’s issue wasn’t the pacing perse but the lack of proper explanation for expanded universe elements, which is also present here - Blue Teams missions were definitely the best in the game, hand’s down. - Is the drama really effective? It honestly just feels like they pulled the AI-Rebellion plot line out of their -Yoinks!- and shoehorned Cortana in to fill as the villain role. Osiris vs Blue Team was no drama at all. - I can see the parallels between Halo 5 and The Empire Strikes back as it’s a middle act, but at this point I don’t really care about Halo 6. What 343’s done this time has totally killed any Hype I have for the next narrative. I’ll just have to wait another 3 years to see if 343 are going to finally fix their -Yoink-.Discussion:

  • See, the thing with Cortana is that the whole “The Created (Which is a dumb name) are the inheritors of the Mantle” came out of blarging nowhere". It clashes so much with Cortana character development over the past 4 games, and it’s an absolute joke. I’m calling it that in Halo 6 we find out that the Domain was corrupted or some -Yoink- to explain this mischaracterization. - You’re also misconstruing the Didact. He was an actual villain who had actual motivations, i.e being mind raped by The Primordial and being left to stew in a Cryptum cut off from the domain for 100,000 years which heightened his grudge/hate for humanity. - I’m not sure what Character Development you’re referring to, because there was none present in the game. At all. - Except the Cliche’s weren’t awesome. They were uninspired and boring.

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> 2533274869104903;8:
> - Agree on misleading advertising

Hi Chills Pills,

Thanks for taking the time to write.

I feel as though too many people had prepared for a different story - the one that was advertised - and this is causing a lot of the problem with people, this includes what I said about the drama. Drama is just what engages you emotionally. While it certainly wasn’t present between the two fireteams. It was delivered with the chatter between the fireteams themselves in-game, the questions that they had that were also on the players mind and the ominous vibe of from the sound direction.

> 2533274869104903;8:
> Cons:
>
> - Let’s be fair, Halo 5 was paced terribly. Halo 4’s issue wasn’t the pacing perse but the lack of proper explanation for expanded universe elements, which is also present here

I agree that Halo 4 didn’t explain the expanded universe fully, but there was still quite a lot of explanation. Coupled with Spartan Ops and Halo Escalation, the story was quite fleshed out. I still feel that Halo 4 had too much content too fast and that’s why they weren’t able to explain everything within just the Halo 4 campaign.

As far as Halo 5 goes, I’d like to hear something more specific about Halo 5’s pacing so that I can understand what was wrong with it, because I didn’t feel it was bad.

> 2533274869104903;8:
> Cons:
>
> - I can see the parallels between Halo 5 and The Empire Strikes back as it’s a middle act, but at this point I don’t really care about Halo 6. What 343’s done this time has totally killed any Hype I have for the next narrative. I’ll just have to wait another 3 years to see if 343 are going to finally fix their -Yoink-.

How did you feel about Halo 2’s cliffhanger ending?

> 2533274869104903;8:
> Discussion:
>
> - See, the thing with Cortana is that the whole “The Created (Which is a dumb name) are the inheritors of the Mantle” came out of blarging nowhere". It clashes so much with Cortana character development over the past 4 games, and it’s an absolute joke. I’m calling it that in Halo 6 we find out that the Domain was corrupted or some -Yoink- to explain this mischaracterization.

Lol, the ‘created’ word was a bit stupid, but I didn’t feel that it came from no where. She had spent quite sometime with the gravemind and she was apparently all over the place, “So much of me is wrong…out of place…you might be too late”. For me, its not a stretch to imagine that a logical AI with the capacity of Cortana, in her rampant state, would see that Humans are not ready to attain the mantle. With her new found ability to increase the lifespan of AI’s infinitely and their ability to compile large amounts of information in a short time, she has begun to think that she is best suited to assume the mantle (being able to evolve faster). Librarian also made mention that the Ancilla was part of what she had hoped to seed. Also, “The mantle of responsibility lies with those whose evolution is most complete” ~ Cortana reading Forerunner Artifact on Requiem.

In Halo 4, Dr Halsey’s data pads hinted that a signature of Cortana had been found on a forerunner installation which Cortana had never actully been too, suggesting that the Cortana related events in Halo 5 were already in effect.

Another sign of change was when she was going to stop the Ur-Didact from leaving requiem but she freaked out and didn’t trap him, “I can’t imprison these Prometheans…like Dr Halsey imprisoned me!”. She was starting to see other sides of the story.
This same line of thought is apparent in Halo 5 when Chief asks Cortana is she was planning to help him like Dr Halsey did (in Cortana’s eyes Halsey kidnapped and indoctrinated him) and Cortana said that Halsey imprisoned Chief with his current life and duty.

> 2533274869104903;8:
> - You’re also misconstruing the Didact. He was an actual villain who had actual motivations, i.e being mind raped by The Primordial and being left to stew in a Cryptum cut off from the domain for 100,000 years which heightened his grudge/hate for humanity.

I didn’t mean to imply that the Didact was a simple character (love the character), but Cortana is able to absorb information much faster than organic beings. So she can absorb thousands of years of history much faster. I feel that her time with the gravemind, her exposure to the Domain, her rampant personalities and everything that is ‘wrong and out of place’ has finally led her to being this way. If you disagree, I’d love to hear your reasons. Because I honestly did feel that the games were leading Cortana to becoming different. Even in the behind the scenes for Halo 4, 343 were talking about how Halo 4 is trying to be a more human story, but ironically the most human character is Cortana.

> 2533274869104903;8:
> Discussion:
>
> - I’m not sure what Character Development you’re referring to, because there was none present in the game. At all.

What I meant was that the characters have already been developed in previous games or other media within the Halo Universe. What sort of change is expected of say Blue Team in their 40’s with years of development already in their past.

> 2533274869104903;8:
> Discussino:
>
> - Except the Cliche’s weren’t awesome. They were uninspired and boring.

Not sure which ones you are talking about. Jul 'Mdama was bland and I’m glad they killed him off. But Chief’s character, the story of the forerunner etc I like those.

> 2533274869104903;8:
> :
>
> - I’m pretty sure that the Janus Key/Absolute Record will have absolutely no relevance to the story at all. I imagine it originally factored largely into Halo 5’s plotline but was tossed aside after Spartan Ops Season 2 was relegated into Escalation

This is a real shame if they have scrapped it, the absoute record had so much potential.

Lastly, I’m interested in what you think of the Flood possibly returning, because I am expecting it in future Halo games, what if Cortana’s time with Gravemind has convinced her that the Gravemind’s consciousness is the best evolutionary step. Just a thought lol. I mean she is on Halo at the end.