I loaded quite a few days worth of forum listings and didn’t find a similar topic so I figured I’d add my two cents in a new topic.
I’ll start off by saying that I think the opening cinematic did a lot of things right. For example, it showcased what a Spartan can really do. Jumping right into battle, moving quickly, taking down threats, it was exciting, and makes me wish that somehow a big budget movie could be made about Halo. Although I can’t remember reading in the books about Spartans demonstrating THAT much skill and taking down a whole army with little effort, these Spartans have better tech. I’m genuinely interested in seeing how the characters of Osiris team interact with one another. Blue team has been friends forever, and their communication is on point. However, Osiris team seems to have been just put together, and if Halo 3: ODST and Nightfall showed us anything, it’s that sometimes Buck and Locke’s teams had their rough patches.
I for the most part would rate the cinematic well. It’s just one thing has been bugging me since Halo Wars (and was continued in Halo 4). The Elites have never really showcased their skills. In this cinematic, the Elites seemed sluggish, disorganized, and weak. From the books, their have been multiple occasions where Elites have held their own in one-on-one combat with even some of the best Spartans. In Halo: First Strike, Master Chief was struggling to take down one zealot, and needed Johnson’s help in order to kill it. In Halo: Hunters in the Dark, Spartan Kodiak “spars” with N’tho and even though Kodiak is
intentionally going for a kill and N’tho is surprised by how aggressive Kodiak is attacking, N’tho holds Kodiak off.Elites are supposed to be a warrior culture, trained in fighting their entire lives. It’s really all they care about. In Mjolnir armor Spartans are heavier, so they may have a strength advantage (but per pound Elites are much stronger), however Elites have always been faster. In Hunters in the Dark,
Kodiak and Holt have to use thruster packs to jump across a broken forerunner bridge, but N’tho and another Elite have no trouble running and jumping across said gap with no boost and little effort. Kodiak was even surprised at the sprinting speed of N’tho.In the cinematic, Vale makes two Elites in a phantom look like incompetent fools in hand to hand, killing one and kicking the other out the door. In Halo Wars, three Spartans take down dozens of JOGGING Elites with spears, who do one thrust, miss, and get mowed down, while the Spartans are doing all the acrobatics. In Spartan Ops, Geck gets the jump on Thorne but somehow afterwards partakes in the silliest, clumsiest, hand to hand fight and gets slapped around by Thorne. Geck only takes the upper hand at the end with a cheap shot.
All I’m saying is, it would be real nice if the best fighting force in the Covenant had more feats of strength in the games. If you want a good story, you have to have more competent, frightening, formidable villains. I feel like I should have said this sooner because Halo 5 is finished and is just waiting to be released and it’s probably going to underplay the Elites similarly to the opening cinematic. I’m sure it’ll still be a good game, but this only means we might have to wait until the next game to see the Elites showcase their true strength.
Does anyone else feel similarly to how I feel? We NEED good villains! Maybe not just aliens either, this game is introducing the concept of Humans vs Human in the Halo Universe, that’s an new angle and an intriguing concept.
Ilsa Zane is still out there, she’s supposed to be as strong as an armored Spartan IV, it’d be interesting if she could strike up an alliance with Brutes or the Telcam Elites through her insurrectionist contacts and get Helioskrill armor (which isn’t really like Mjolnir armor, more like the armor elites wear that mostly provides an energy shield)I’ve blabbled a lot, what do you guys think?