Bosses in Halo have thus far been somewhat undetermined, finicky, but leaving you with the desire for something more. They’ve come in all shapes and sizes but not in every game. If there is one thing I’ve seen about 343 in the way they make enemies (in Halo 5) its that they are quite good at making bosses. AKA; Warden/GruntMech and the improvements made to the mini-boss known as the Hunter. This is something that I think the Halo campaign has been needing a little more of. I’ve also really enjoyed the gameplay improvements on the Covenant enemies but thats not really what this is about.
As a disclaimer, I understand this is my opinion and not everyone shares the same thoughts. I am going to be critical of some things and gonna give suggestions that hopefully 343 takes into consideration or perhaps already has. I’m curious though to see some discussion on this topic and maybe on some of the points I bring up.
The****Warden:
Everyone knew very quickly this was a boss when encountering him and I believe the Warden was well executed and perhaps one of the best Halo bosses made so far. He had a fast and dangerous eye beam that could take you out in a blink of an eye if not highly reactive, a black orb that would relentlessly follow you and could only be stopped by nearby cover in its way, and a giant freaking sword that could easily slice you in half! The only way you could hope to take him down realistically with average weapons like the BR was to somehow get behind him and shoot the weak spot on his back.
However, he suffered over-saturation, Having a grand total of 6 appearances you had to take him down a number of 9 times!!! 9****TIMES!!!
It doesn’t help that half of the time you see him you could say it was entirely unnecessary and not all that interesting of a place to battle him in.
Its a sad story that this happened to possibly one of the best bosses so far in Halo but could have been avoided had there been other boss-like enemies instead and thats what I intend to talk more about later on.
Grunt****Mech:
When I first heard the grunts were getting their very own vehicle I was ecstatic! I love it whenever an alien gets Weapons or Vehicles to call their own as it helps create their identity, much like the Brutes had in Halo 3. Anyways, the Grunt Mech in my opinion is an excellent (and hilarious) addition to the Halo universe and should definitely come back for Halo 6. Speaking of which, an enemy like this would have been an excellent replacement for the Warden on 1 or 2 missions. For example, imagine you got to the end of the mission Battle of Sunaion where the warden shows up, only to immediately get decimated by the Grunt Mech and followed by a overly confident remark from the grunt pilot who then turns his attention to you and the Arbiter!
Forerunner****Bosses:
Now on to the main topic. Halo enemies and especially Promethean enemies along with their tech tend to focus on weak points. A big reason for this is tougher than usual enemies for tougher than usual humans (spartans) to compete against. I think a great job was done on expanding the Promethean enemies and capitalizing on weak (orange) points. It reminds me of the Lost Planet series of games and the aliens who similarly had these same orange weak points that you absolutely wanted to shoot if you were to do any real good damage. The new Knights and Promethean Phaeton being the greatest examples of this in Halo. This is something I want to see even more. The Lost Planet series had many bigger than life monsters you had to face and I think the 343 team could pull this same thing off with some Forerunner/Promethean boss enemies of a large scale. This is something that could have helped to have in Halo 5.
‘Covenant’ Bosses:
This same mechanic discussed earlier could be applied to Hunter enemies if they expanded the number of Hunter forms. For example, the Lekgolo (Hunters) tend to mimic other armored bug creatures like beetles. A new Hunter ‘variant’ could be an entirely new enemy that would like sorta like a ‘potato bug’ that essentially rolls around (as an attack) to trample you but has a weak spot somewhere like on its side or directly behind it. Its not too different from the idea of the Scarab which was controlled by Lekgolo as well.
Speaking of which, thats a boss-like enemy in Halo 3 that I’d really like to see come back. I understand how 343 has been trying out different things that somewhat resemble the Scarab in how you take them down at least like the Lich and Kraken but ultimately they just weren’t as good because they were very scripted encounters. In fact, when fighting the scarab you felt like it was the enemy (because it was!!!) but when fighting the Scion or Kraken they just felt like buildings you were trying to destroy.
Sure, when you saw the Kraken you thought “WOW this thing looks like a huge threat and I wonder what kinda awesome battle we’ll have?!” But when it came down to it, the Kraken was entirely stationary and you really weren’t fighting the**Kraken but rather JUST the enemies on it and that made for what felt like a very scripted and uninteresting battle.
I know the Halo games are held to an incredibly high standard and time constraints are a thing but I believe 343 is up to the challenge with all the various support they have. And I think its a standard that many other successful games should follow as well. 343 has been making a natural succession from Halo 4 to 5 and I hope for the best that the next game is better than their previous just as Halo 5 was. Thank you for reading this far and please let me know your thoughts as well!