I wrote an article about a topic that is rather important to me. Why I think Halo:Reach should not be be considered a great Halo game. I would appreciate any feedback, and feel free to share the article if you enjoyed it (or even if you didn’t). Here is the link to the article: https://medium.com/@JMartNotKMart/please-stop-saying-halo-reach-is-your-favorite-halo-game-88632bfc6286?source=linkShare-9611923b6011-1496338118
I think everyone is fully entitled to their own humble opinion; we should not chastise them for their tastes.
I say that in the article. My reasoning is backed up with mentioning objective changes that occurred during that installment of the franchise that overall hurt the franchise. I did edit my original post as it did not mention this as opinion; my mistake.
I read the article and while you do bring up some good points I don’t think its fair to say that people can’t have a certain opinion. Opinions are by very definition your own thoughts and feelings about something. You can’t really take that away.
I can appreciate the passion and thought that went into this, but it has as its underlying assumption the notion that whatever makes a game popular makes it good and that whatever erodes that popularity is bad. For me this is completely untrue. Many of the features of Reach which you considered detrimental to Halo were the features that made it, for me, the first equitable Halo experience where the franchise valued all players and not just the best players. To carry the point further, I can think of many franchises which are extremely popular - Call of Duty comes to mind - and which I consider to be one garbage game after another.
In the end I think it’s fair to call Reach a failure if you feel that continuity is critical to success, and if you define success as ‘better player retention.’ For me there was so much wrong with Halo 3 that continuity to Reach would not have been a selling point. Likewise, as I said about Call of Duty, I don’t care if a game is successful by any financial standard, or whether it can maintain a multiplayer population like CoD. I’ll make my own judgments about whether or not a game is good.
None of this means that I count Reach as the best Halo. It wasn’t. I agree with you inasmuch as I think most people have a favorite that is based on some form of nostalgia mixed with preferences for certain mechanics and features. If those mechanics and features happened to belong to an early title then we get positions like: Old Halo Good, New Halo Bad. If they belong to Reach or 4 or 5 then we get: New Halo Relevant, Old Halo Dumb. But pinning the right-or-wrong of it on precedent or the breaking of precedent is, I would say, arbitrary and pointless. While Reach wasn’t my favorite Halo, it’s no less deserving of the title just because it was a boat-rocker, or just because it couldn’t maintain H3’s population, or just because it was the forth Halo instead of the first.
So, Halo Reach, contrary to popular belief, was a spin-off, and as such was entitled to change elements of the established Formula. Just like Wars, just like ODST. It was an incredibly feature full and content complete spin-off, one the likes of which I would very much like to see again after Halo 6, but it was a spin-off nonetheless.
The fault, therefore, does lie with 343 for implementing and further expanding on mechanics and direction provided by a spin-off (and a controversial one at that) into a mainline title, as apposed to returning to the Halo 3 formula and evolving in that direction, which I agree, is what should have occurred.
Reach ‘started the trends’ of uneven starts and the progression based multiplayer, but while you begrudge Halo Reach for starting them, I find myself asking why they became trends in the first place.
Lemme ask you this, If you played as ODSTs in Halo 4, would you blame ODST for introducing the concept, or would you blame 343 for implementing ODST gameplay nuances to a mainline title?
If Halo 4 was an RTS, would you blame Halo Wars for introducing RTS mechanics to the franchise, or would you blame 343 for implementing the mechanics of an RTS into a mainline title?
These are hyperbolic examples of course, as the former negates Master Chief as a protagonist and therefore wouldn’t be possible, and the latter is an entire shift in genre, but the logic is consistently baffling. Especially when, in the real life example (Halo 4 taking from Reach instead of 3), you have numerous sources that would have alerted 343 to the issue of doing so. Reach was a controversial title, many took a break from the franchise because it was too different, these people likely came back for Halo 4 (which out-performed Reach) and then left altogether considering what a hot mess its multiplayer was.
Armor Lock was the bane of a player’s existence, people expressed their concern with uneven starts and samey maps, and the community (which was palpably larger back then) made their opinions on the ranking system very clear. Even from a financial standpoint, Reach sold less than Halo 3, so going forward, surely a profit driven company would follow the formula that was more lucrative, but no, instead they chased a franchise which at it’s apex, undersold Halo 3.
To this day, that creative decision bamboozles me. To, homogenise one of the most influential games in the genre, rather than embrace what it was and expand on it…it’s depressing to think about.
You say that Bungie “left them in a tight spot”, and I agree with that statement, passing the torch after a controversial final lap is bound to bring pressure from the crowd, but as I said before, acknowledging the nature of the community at the time, looking at financial evidence, and understanding that Reach was a spin-off and not a mainline title, I don’t see how 343 could have thought that continuing down their current path could have lead to anything but decline.
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> So, Halo Reach, contrary to popular belief, was a spin-off, and as such was entitled to change elements of the established Formula. Just like Wars, just like ODST. It was an incredibly feature full and content complete spin-off, one the likes of which I would very much like to see again after Halo 6, but it was a spin-off nonetheless.
> The fault, therefore, does lie with 343 for implementing and further expanding on mechanics and direction provided by a spin-off (and a controversial one at that) into a mainline title, as apposed to returning to the Halo 3 formula and evolving in that direction, which I agree, is what should have occurred.
>
> Reach ‘started the trends’ of uneven starts and the progression based multiplayer, but while you begrudge Halo Reach for starting them, I find myself asking why they became trends in the first place.
> Lemme ask you this, If you played as ODSTs in Halo 4, would you blame ODST for introducing the concept, or would you blame 343 for implementing ODST gameplay nuances to a mainline title?
> If Halo 4 was an RTS, would you blame Halo Wars for introducing RTS mechanics to the franchise, or would you blame 343 for implementing the mechanics of an RTS into a mainline title?
> These are hyperbolic examples of course, as the former negates Master Chief as a protagonist and therefore wouldn’t be possible, and the latter is an entire shift in genre, but the logic is consistently baffling. Especially when, in the real life example (Halo 4 taking from Reach instead of 3), you have numerous sources that would have alerted 343 to the issue of doing so. Reach was a controversial title, many took a break from the franchise because it was too different, these people likely came back for Halo 4 (which out-performed Reach) and then left altogether considering what a hot mess its multiplayer was.
> Armor Lock was the bane of a player’s existence, people expressed their concern with uneven starts and samey maps, and the community (which was palpably larger back then) made their opinions on the ranking system very clear. Even
> __from a financial standpoint, Reach sold less than Halo 3, so going forward, surely a profit driven company would follow the formula that was more lucrative, but no, instead they chased a franchise which at it’s apex, undersold Halo 3.__To this day, that creative decision bamboozles me. To, homogenise one of the most influential games in the genre, rather than embrace what it was and expand on it…it’s depressing to think about.
>
> You say that Bungie “left them in a tight spot”, and I agree with that statement, passing the torch after a controversial final lap is bound to bring pressure from the crowd, but as I said before, acknowledging the nature of the community at the time, looking at financial evidence, and understanding that Reach was a spin-off and not a mainline title,
> I don’t see how 343 could have thought that continuing down their current path could have lead to anything but decline.
There’s a lot of truth, and more importantly, a lot of wisdom here. But two things jump out at me.
Thing one: as I’ve said so often before, success and quality are seldom the same thing. I didn’t think H3 was a high-water mark for the franchise but it made a lot of money. The game I think came closest to getting things right was not, to put it delicately, the most successful version of Halo. That said, none of them were perfect. Not the one conventionally thought to be garbage, and not the one conventionally thought to be the greatest Halo ever. People who happen to love Old Halo love to cite H3’s financial success as evidence of its superiority, conveniently forgetting that it accounts for 13 million units out of 70 million sold. Yes, that’s more than any of the others, but none of the others are slouches (even Halo 4) and a good chunk of the success of H3 is bound up in circumstances that have nothing to do with who developed it or with its gameplay formula or with its ‘holy grail’ ranking system.
Thing two: Here’s a thought experiment. If 343 had produced two successive games (4 and 5) which used Halo 3’s game play mechanics and rankings unchanged, and added only new campaigns and new multiplayer maps, would we have had two games which out-sold Halo 3 or would we have stagnation and inevitable decline? I suspect I know what your answer will be, and moreover, I expect you can guess what mine would be. All I can say is that I never gamed until Halo, and I still don’t ever play much of anything else. If they’d tried to sell me a Halo 3 re-tread for two successive titles then I’d’ve got out of gaming quite a while ago. That may put me in a minority, but losing players is losing players. I just don’t see how anybody who is charged with maintaining an on-going franchise can ever please enough people to repeat success in perpetuity. Not even Call of Duty has been able to.
halo reach is my favorite halo game
No worries there. My favorite Halo game is usually whatever happens to be the most recent one. I have a great time with all of them, and when the next one comes, I move on with no regrets.
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> Thing one: as I’ve said so often before, success and quality are seldom the same thing. I didn’t think H3 was a high-water mark for the franchise but it made a lot of money. The game I think came closest to getting things right was not, to put it delicately, the most successful version of Halo. That said, none of them were perfect. Not the one conventionally thought to be garbage, and not the one conventionally thought to be the greatest Halo ever. People who happen to love Old Halo love to cite H3’s financial success as evidence of its superiority, conveniently forgetting that it accounts for 13 million units out of 70 million sold. Yes, that’s more than any of the others, but none of the others are slouches (even Halo 4) and a good chunk of the success of H3 is bound up in circumstances that have nothing to do with who developed it or with its gameplay formula or with its ‘holy grail’ ranking system.
No I agree, Halo 3’s financial success was largely due to its position as an Xbox 360 launch title, its massive marketing campaign and the hype generated by Halo 2’s unintended cliffhanger, Its staying power was due to the refined gameplay which, I also agree, is not perfect.
The projectile based BR is irritating and occasionally inconsistent, AR starts combined with shield bleed through promote run n’ gun tactics early game, the magnum is under-powered, the sanbox is littered with ‘junk’ items like the Spiker, the Radar Jammer and the Solar Flare. The equipment system was interesting but lacks visual communication on player models, and the vehicles always felt very rigid, at least to me.
I personally think H2 had the best gameplay, but it was marred by button combos, exploitable glitches, and an overpowered rocket launcher. Many other players do put H3 on a pedestal, which I don’t agree with, but my point is that the older formula was far more adaptable, and if improved upon would have lead to more ‘success’ than the decline that we saw with H4 and its CoD inspired mechanics.
> Thing two: Here’s a thought experiment. If 343 had produced two successive games (4 and 5) which used Halo 3’s game play mechanics and rankings unchanged, and added only new campaigns and new multiplayer maps, would we have had two games which out-sold Halo 3 or would we have stagnation and inevitable decline? I suspect I know what your answer will be, and moreover, I expect you can guess what mine would be. All I can say is that I never gamed until Halo, and I still don’t ever play much of anything else. If they’d tried to sell me a Halo 3 re-tread for two successive titles then I’d’ve got out of gaming quite a while ago. That may put me in a minority, but losing players is losing players. I just don’t see how anybody who is charged with maintaining an on-going franchise can ever please enough people to repeat success in perpetuity. Not even Call of Duty has been able to.
That’s the thing, a re-tread of H3 isn’t what we (speaking from myself and the 2 or 3 classic fans I know personally only, as I can’t account for everyone) want;
H2A’s multiplayer suite in MCC was pretty much the closest we’ve had to a ‘new’ Halo game in the style we prefer and even it wasn’t perfect (No Assassinations, for example).
However, If that suite was used as the blueprints for a new Halo game, let’s say H4 in the example you provided, not a re-tread of H3, (H3 wasn’t a re-tread of 2, it was an iteration and improvement, same thing here), bringing back the ‘classic’ gameplay, with improvements from Reach and some new ones, and I think H4 would have been highly praised and held in higher regard by most fans.
With regards to the ranking system, I have always pushed for the idea that a hybrid between Reach’s progressive ranks affected by all game-modes and Halo 3’s fluctuating 1-50 system in competitive playlists, Tied into a hybrid unlock system, with base armor unlocks through credits and variations through challenges; That way you have the best of both.
Assuming all other elements were the same of course, people would still complain about the Art-style, Spartan Ops, etc, and I think financially it would be sitting at roughly the same spot, i.e. just below Halo 3, but I think its player retention and public opinion would be much higher.
Halo 5 I think still would have lead to a decline and possibly an even bigger outrage than it actually generated, but that’s a larger issue to do with the people behind its development than the gameplay imo.
Now, the worry of Franchise fatigue is a very real one, but I think people who use CoD as an example lack the overall picture of what each mainline Halo is, a community hub. In CoD, the multiplayer is 1/3 of the game, the campaigns are rarely focused on and lack any effort for the most part, and the tertiary mode (Zombies usually) is often the most praised mechanic, almost universally so in-fact, yet the gameplay mechanics are by-and-large identical.
People complain about CoD games being the ‘same’, because they lack the nuance or understanding to nail down what the issue is, which isn’t CoD’s core, (which in itself I would argue is less adaptable than Halo’s) but what the developers choose to do with it. CoD doesn’t have a map editor, it doesn’t have outrageous custom games, or even vehicles, so to be fair there are less variables for the developers to change to begin with, but titles in that franchise also release once per year, increasing the monotony of the franchise and accelerating its stagnation.
Halo is a community driven experience, and I believe Halo as a franchise had honestly evolved to the point where I don’t think the gameplay needed to ‘change’ to maintain relevancy. Racing game franchises last years and they barely change their gameplay, as do platformers, because in knowing the formula is sound, developers innovate in other areas to make them fresh and new. Halo has so many other elements that you can improve, innovate and evolve, that I reckon focusing on them instead of trying to ‘reinvent the wheel’ would lead to a far better game.
And even then, I don’t think the franchise should negate innovation entirely, I just think gameplay innovation should be reserved for spin-off titles, Halo Wars and 2 for example, fantastic additions to the franchise, ODST, being another, and this is where ideas like the Flood horror game, the galactic-conquest space shooter, the Marine based game, and Sangheilli action game would fit in. Collabs with other developers to fill the void between each mainline title (which I would argue should be increased to 4 years rather than 3), that’s what I want to see; Iteration of classic gameplay, and innovation in features and spin-off games, focus on telling good stories and fostering the community, not changing mechanics. That’s how I think the franchise succeeds going forward.
Finally, I also want to ask one last thing, what is really worse, Halo keeping the same, unique gameplay from the ‘classic’ entries (especially now that we haven’t seen it in 10 years), or Halo becoming the same as other games currently on the market?
That’s all, I’ve rambled long enough.
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That, sir, was a genuinely good read and it all made way more sense than I might like to admit.
That said, despite being a classic Halo vet, I’ll never (again) be a classic Halo fan. My sweet spot was a combination of Reach Firefight and H4 multiplayer, and yes, I know the latter pretty much makes me the devil or insane or both. I guess I’m that rare player for whom gameplay mechanics take a back seat to other factors. Factors like, don’t make me play multiplayer if I’d rather play PvE, and don’t make me climb a rank ladder when I’d rather not, etc. New mechanics I can adapt to, but the psychological abuse and torture of visible ranks is something I will condemn with my dying breath. Of course, I say that I can adapt to new mechanics, but the truth is that Halo 5 is about two short steps from leaving me behind. I haven’t figured out exactly whether the problem is motion mechanics, heavy aim, too wide of a skill gap, or my own bad attitude. Or some combination of all of them. Lack of PvE (single player) and a worthless non-ranked experience (“Social”) certainly don’t help matters.
At any rate, I really enjoyed everything you had to say. Keep up the good work!
I don’t care what your favorite Halo game is as long as you are a fan and play Halo. I have loved every game made to certain degrees. Every game had stuff I liked and didn’t like.
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> Link to article.I think everyone is fully entitled to their own humble opinion; we should not chastise them for their tastes.
Completely agree with you my friend! For my opinion: Halo reach is a great game and I still play it to this day 