My Final Impressions of Reach(And Your Own)

Games Other Halo
1

The Reach era is coming to an end as Halo 4 launches this tuesday. Two years of both good and bad memories are coming to a close. What are your final thoughts of the game? How does it stack up against other Halo games? Do you think you will miss it?

Reach in my eyes.
A wonderful but greatly flawed game in some aspects.

Things Reach Did Right:

  • Campaign. It gave me many feelings of closure and nostalgia thanks to homages to past Halo games, the inclusion of Halsey and Noble Team’s mission to deliver Cortana to the Autumn also gave me a sense of closure.

  • Forge. Forge World was a genius idea that brought endless possibilities to Forge. We could make whatever we imagined possible. Except for Unicron.

  • Customization. Deep character customization that was much needed in past Halo games finally made its way to Reach and offered many options when it came to pimping out your Spartan.

  • Firefight. A fully customizable rendition of Firefight appeared in Reach that was absent in ODST.

  • Challenges. They always gave me a reason to spend a good amount of time with Reach every single day.

  • Gruntpocalypse. Self-explanatory.

Things Reach Did Wrong:

  • Multiplayer Maps. Extremely dull and unimaginative. They were either ripped straight from the campaign or crafted in Forge World(The use of the same exact colors was getting annoying).

  • Armor Lock. The biggest annoyance in the Halo Universe to date. I’d rather replay Halo 3’s Cortana on Mythic than have to deal with this ridiculously overpowered and obnoxious ability(Yes, I may have exaggerated by just a bit).

  • The cR System. Getting matched up with teams of Inheritors, Reclaimers, and more who label themselves amazing because of their incredibly high XP-based ranking was just awful.

  • Motion Blur. An incredibly annoying and unnecessary effect. I’m very glad that Halo 4 has tossed this out the window.

What did you enjoy about Reach? What did you hate?

My Current Scale of the Best Halo Games(From Greatest to Least).

  1. Halo 2
  2. Halo 3
  3. Halo: Reach
  4. Halo Combat Evolved
  5. Halo 3: ODST
  6. Halo Wars
  7. Halo 4: King of the Hill Fuel by Mountain Dew
2

Honestly, Reach is tied with Halo 2 for my second favorite Halo game, behind CE of course. I have spent so much time in this game I don’t even want to think about it. It has the most fluid and responsive controls out of any Halo, and Bungie definitely perfected the mechanics of gameplay in Reach. It was the game where they implemented the most innovations, and yet still delivered the Halo experience we all know and love. Really my only complaint toward Reach is the lack of innovative multiplayer maps. It almost feels as if they poured so much time and effort into perfecting the other aspects that they left the maps on the back burner.

I would also like to point out that this is far from my final impression of Reach. The great thing about Halo games is the years and years of replay ability.