Sheesh, I really triggered you, what?
But no need to get personal.
If you like Minigames, Easter Eggs, gear that breaks and money, that’s fine.
But like I mentioned: I don’t see the point.
In most games which offer to collect money, you sooner or later have so much of it, you’re basically Elon Musk. So when a Minigame offers you 100 Rubies as a reward…wow. In older Zelda Games, you could earn heart pieces or bottles or other stuff. Felt like a better reward.
Also, I wasn’t looking for Mario Party. So playing a lot of Minigames wasn’t my personal focus.
Easter Eggs are mostly just nostalgia or small jokes. Doesn’t have any deeper value to me.
Since weapons break all the time, there is nothing really gained. Sometimes you have to fight a bigger enemie to get those “better” weapons. But by fighting them, you waste other weapons. So it’s a constant loop. Get a weapon, waste it to get another weapon, and repeat.
I preferred the old way, where weapons didn’t break. Items were part of the story. They were linked to Dungeons etc. And you had to get Item A first to solve puzzle C later in the game.
Also, there was no truly unique Weapon besides the Master Sword (Which technically didn’t break, yes, but had to recharge, great…). You could get thunder blades or whatever on multiple locations, so it’s not like you had to go to ONE specific place to get THE weapon. It just drops here and there, pretty random.
I don’t see what’s bad about aggressively approaching enemies. If you want to play stealth or as a sniper, just do so. It’s just “different”, nothing more, nothing less. This play style should have nothing to do with breaking weapons and shouldn’t be forced by it.
Orbs were useful to a certain point. But at some point, you have more than enough health/stamina. You don’t need to complete all 120 of them. But if you do, the reward is “meh…”.
I only used cooking in the early stages of the game. Especially when you gained this Zora-Ability which revives you, health is not really an issue anymore. And if you need something, just eat 5 apples in a row or whatever, they’re everywhere.
Again: I’m not saying Infinite is the best Open World Game there is. It certainly has its flaws. But BotW isn’t either, and not really a reference.
And “if” a player like me, who at least took the time to complete all 120 Shrines, still didn’t spend enough time with the game…maybe, just maybe that’s not my flaw. Maybe it is something, the game should do better…
Btw: Newer research shows that Neanderthals were actually pretty smart/not inferior to other humans. That’s why most modern Museums update the way they display them. So, you’re basically promoting a racist stereotype
Open world doesn’t work in Halo unless you do it a very specific way. Sometimes I wonder if anyone else truly understands why Mombasa Streets works so well in ODST.
Well for one, Bungie was amazing at level design and storytelling. Reach also had awesome cities and environments each mission. 343 is really good at making grass and metal walls. Enemies in Campaign just exist to do nothing and guard nothing. Without linear levels, I was able to skip past almost everything with grapple and cloak thrusters. No incentive to fight enemies if I don’t need to. No reason to explore for secrets, because there are none. No reason to admire the atmosphere because everything looks the same. The mission levels were fine, but the open world was stale. Didn’t really feel like I was in a Halo universe. Felt like I was walking through idk Canada or something.
Open world is not what I’m looking for in a Halo game. In a spin-off it would be fine, but not a main title. I would rather more linear level design that the developers took time to make interesting. “Side quests” that are repetitive and do nothing to add to the story are just filler IMO. I would rather fight varied groups of enemies through unique terrain between cutscenes than to spend 5 minutes driving past rng enemies in the same forest arena to just reach the next “level”
God the open world is just full of grass and nothing the world is empty and barren but I guess it makes more sence to make one open world then multiple differant scenes and levels clearly just a rushed campaign but it is what it is , I think games have gone past the campaign days and it’s just mp only but for a OG game like halo they should’ve done better for campaign
Open world and halo don’t mix in my opinion. I’m glad we didn’t get a fully open world campaign.
I think most games that go open world do so because it’s harder to design a linear game with good level design and pacing. I think it’s a crutch that incompetent game devs lean on.
I hope future single player content is mostly linear crafted experiences.
I think havign more to do and more levels and things would have made the game much better but i still would have prefered a linear campaign because i just like it better.
Halo 3 had awesome level design and variety and if they tool inspiration from halo 3 and improved it (making bigger mroe ambitious maps, more ways to assault an enemy position etc) but still having it be linear, would have been perfect.
But that is just my personal opinion. The open world is fine just not my style
I don’t really think open world blends well with a military shooter. It works well for vigilante stories like super heroes or fantasy stories because you have a mix of populated and unpopulated areas. It can tell the story of a land or large city pretty well.
But halo is a space epic. Where you’re a soldier on a mission. Fighting an enemy army or two, or three. You don’t kill random bandits or criminals. FoBs providing infinite weapons, HVT’s just camping in the woods for some reason, and marines being help captive in random spots, all just feels very artificial and video gamey.
Halo has a sense of scale and pacing. You jump all across the ring, or to other planets and ships, fighting, the covenant, flood, sentinels, prometheans, some of whom are often fighting eachother too.
Infinites just a big version of the 2nd level of CE. It doesn’t even have the nice cinematic intros to levels that the previous games had because the camera is afraid to get 20 feet away from chief.
All of those things you mentioned sounded great. I think more depth to the campaign would have suited the game well, and I can imagine collecting rations and medical supplies and the like. Maybe even finding parts to build things, like equipment and vehicles.
I guess the grapple hook sometimes jives with that, even though it is a fun and necessary part of the game.
I do think military shooters can do open world. Just look at the Arms series or even the Halo mod for Arms 3 if you wanna get closer.
To be honest, maybe that’s not a bad idea. Imagine Arma 3 Optre style missions that player groups create and just have a series of those as missions. Imagine being part of a convoy that gets ambushed, or a pelican/drop pod style D Day mission where you have to gain a foothold. If they want to do more open world, talk to people that create this stuff, it’d be sweet.
Have you noticed how Mombasa Streets in ODST is less like an open world, and more like interconnected branching paths and combat arenas? It’s not completely linear, but it isn’t open world either. The level design stayed true to Halo’s arena shooter fundamentals. This is why “Halo”, “Silent Cartographer”, and “Mombasa Streets” worked, and Infinite’s open world did not.
Ask yourself why nobody wants an open world Mario platforming game, and you’ll immediately understand why a true open world doesn’t actually work in Halo.
Word needs to get out to 343 that future Halo games should be more like “Halo”, “Silent Cartographer”, and “Mombasa Streets”, and not like Infinite’s open world sections. Interconnected, well-designed combat arenas that give you a reason to fight enemies and are fun to fight in, but also give you some degree of freedom. And a simple level-based system. Many levels should still be linear as well, for narrative and nostalgic reasons. And last but not least: a wide array of different biomes in a single campaign. ODST was in the right direction. Infinite went in an experimental direction that we now know for sure doesn’t quite work.
All that being said, I wouldn’t mind a spinoff Halo title similar to Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint that experiments a little. But it clearly needs to be a spinoff and not a mainline title. Mainline titles need to be arena shooters, just like how mainline “Super” Mario titles are platforming games. Stay true to the fundamentals of what works, and you can make and maintain a good franchise. This is one of Nintendo’s “secrets”.
Infinite should have gone the Destiny route with loadable zones that give the illusion of freedom, while still being linear branches connected like a dungeon map, like Metroid. True open world would probably suck in Destiny, but at least they have Sparrows they can summon without going to a FOB base every time. Don’t see why I can’t just have a Pelican drop me a gunless Ghost too. The Weapon can copy Banished technology.
Or maybe you should focus on the different aspects that the game has to offer. Nothing compels you to go out of your way to partake in a grind like that. You burnt yourself out on that one. I mean you even said it yourself, theres a threshold to the shrines you even need for the game. At a certain point you really dont need to get anymore hearts or stamina, so you did it to yourself
But i digress…
The things that you ridicule BotW for are the same things that Halo suffers from, but the way Halo suffers through them is just because of lazier development. Dont like your weapons breaking? Well guess what, my energy sword ran out of ammo. Oh shucks now i have stop what im doing to go all the back to an FOB and pick up another one (if im even at that point yet). Or i have to fight an elite whos carrying one. Or I have to pick one up from an enemy base. Lol its the same mechanic as BotW, the difference here is that you’re not dealing with swords and shields, but guns and grenades. Its probably just as easy to get weapons in BotW, plus you can carry like a bagillion of them, so again, youre just focusing on the wrong aspects of the game.
Yea you can play however you want. My point was that BotW makes you stop and think instead of just flinging your over-powered self against waves of enemies. I’m not calling aggressive play bad, I’m calling it mindless
If weapons and loot are the only reason you play adventure type games, then stop playing adventure games. That type of criticism holds no water when you consider the context of a large scale open world game against the backdrop of a larger story. Do you only play Halo’s campaign for the weapons?
Then dont play them. But dont pretend like the game didnt implement good mechanics. I wasnt looking for Far Cry when i started my Halo campaign, and yet here we are. But im not complaining about it and saying that it doesnt make the game special. Because it does. It adds another layer of gameplay. But when your only focus is the weapons, i guess gameplay layers and the intrinsic value of in-game encounters doesnt mean a thing, does it?
Thats a pretty jarring reduction of an immense game lol. It also perfectly sums up Halo Infinite. Oh ma; just replace “gear that breaks” with “weapons that run out of ammo” and “money” with “valor” and its spot on. Sheesh, the irony is killing me… and you.
