This post has probably been written and responded to hundreds if not thousands of times, but I really want to know where the community stands on everything in terms of the main Halo franchise and it’s change in pace, story telling features and artstyle.
I can hazard a guess that 70% if not more veteran Halo players have a favourite game in the franchise which is either Halo 3 or Halo Reach. Why is this? Personally I believe this is because of the way the stories of both of these games were paced and the way they were delivered in a much more serious tone which played with the emotions of players and made them feel as though they were really in the moment. The stories themselves were brilliant, no one can deny that and the way the graphics and artstyle was designed gave the game a much darker, more mature approach in terms of the story.
Come Halo 4 the same kind of style was kept and 343 tried to keep the story fresh, and although it wasn’t a terrible story in and of itself, it didn’t deliver on what most fans were expecting and the gameplay wasn’t perfect, but atleast they tried.
Then Halo 5 appeared, and we were treated to OTT action scenes, the introduction of new characters and new enemies that were more crazy than ever, which, is go for some, but not for most. Halo 5 is clearly different from the rest of the franchise, not only because it changed the way the game is played entirely with Chief not being the main character and Cortana being evil, but by how the game treated itself. The games before treated themselves quite seriously, with plot points that were simple yet effective and twists that no one saw coming, think the last mission of Reach, whereas Halo 5 treated itself as an off the shelf, adrenaline fuelled, shoot 'em up title with a story that felt different to its predecessors. My honest opinion is that 343 tried too hard to appease to all audiences, that it lost most of its charm and threw out what made it Halo such a well loved franchise. The voice acting and character development was sloppy, the game felt as though it was a “run through hallways, kill everything, run through another hallway” kind of game mainly because the level design was reused and didn’t use all of its potential. Halo itself is, yes, a run through hallways game but the way Bungie crafted it made it feel like something different, it made every bullet mean something and had the characters almost spot on and 343 didn’t quite hit that criteria.
Don’t get me wrong, 343 did try, even if just a little, the story was innovative and new, but to me it didn’t sit well, and feels that with all of the major reveals, 343 tried to kick a stool out from under us that we weren’t even stood on. Cortana being alive is kind of a weak selling point, and the fact she turned evil was really predictable the minute you knew she was alive. It felt clunky, weak, almost too “child friendly”, like it held your hand with all slightly complicated points and spelled it out for you letter by letter without leaving a speck of mystery. The build up to the game was brilliant, Hunt The Truth was brilliantly crafted, the reverse trailers were very well done, and it built up to a game that ultimately we never saw.
I don’t want to put too much hate on 5 as in and of itself it’s not a bad game, it’s just not what I was expecting and I’m sure I’m not the only one who sees it that way. What do you guys think?
