I managed to start the Halo 5: Guardians story at about 9:05pm PST (Seattle) and beat it at 4:24am PST without only a couple pauses. While the campaign ended up being pretty good overall, I’m wondering what the heck happened to that story that was teased for months leading up to the release of this game? Minor Spoiler Alert - Master Chief and Locke’s feud is basically a silly misunderstanding and the big story arch ends up ripping away from that very interesting tug-o-war way too early in the campaign. For 3+ years of development, I have to say I’m disappointed in how this all came together. While I like where things went in the second half, the campaign was still way too freaking short for a Halo game and was constantly muffling itself with hard-to-hear voice overs and a lot of inconsistent storytelling. I’m also bewildered by the graphical display that, at times was incredible (cutscenes) but crashed back to reality whenever the cool videos were done. I understand that the XB1 isn’t a powerhouse and both it and the PS4 are underpowered for what gamers expect these days, but there seems to be a little too much sacrifice for the sake of 60FPS (which I like but is not crucial to my enjoyment of any modern game - Destiny is a good example). I would have preferred more stunning graphics than the loaded background animations that we got from time to time.
Where it all turned for the lesser is beyond me, but the story of Halo is too good to be fumbled at all on such a major chapter. 343 had a chance to knock it out of the park and, instead of swinging for the fences, they played it safe with a single instead. These major installments of Halo are slowly killing the franchise, and I haven’t even gotten to the mediocre multiplayer set that had so much potential but is suffocated with weak map design, noticeable drop in graphics output, and sluggish movement mechanics compared to the campaign (which I was hoping would carry over to the MP side of the game… they don’t).
Anyone else feel the same?