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*Original post. Click at your own discretion.
Most people reading this will agree that halo 5 has the worst campaign and narrative in halo history. Halo is known for it’s immersive, and addictive story line and Bungie really set the bar high on how a halo story is supposed to be told. So when 343 comes out with this whole bunch they call a Halo 5 and the campaign is -Yoink- it doesn’t look good But I wanna step back and ask why is Halo 5’s campaign so bad? Now yes this is late but also yes it is intentional because halo infinite comes out in 6 months.
- <mark>REDACTED</mark>. Jkjkjk, but actually. The writers in Halo 5 have no clue how to write a story. Halo 5 starts out pretty good with a Halsey cutscene talking about oni wanting to kill her. But this -Yoink- is never mentioned again in the story. Why the hell is it even there? It feels like 343 didn’t even have game testers. But then your thrown into a sort of new team opposed to buck. Lasky and Palmer are talking about the mission to retrieve halsey who’s been captured by Jul M’dama and the covenant. We’re told Halsey has information on guardian attacks but why does the covenant need that info? Who the hells Jul M’dama? Who the hell is this dude I’m playing? Why is the first thing that comes out of Buck’s mouth absolutely retarded? Why do they do comm checks 5000 feet in the air? These questions should not be asked during a cutscene. You should be watching a cutscene and enjoying it, not listening to every line of dialogue a thinking wow that didn’t make any sense. 3 minutes into the game and you as the player have no clue who you are, who the guy that captured Halsey is(unless you played spartan ops but let’s be real no one did that), and no idea how you ended up on Kamchatka. But then you start the actual game and the promtheans are on Kamchatka too. Whattt??? Why? Halsey must be giving out BJ’s too if even prometheans are on this planet too. This is how it is for every level. You have no clue what your doing and why your doing it. Also I would like to point out, where the hell did all these spartans come from? Like yeah their spartan IV’s but why??? Why did we need more spartans? The writing in this game is absolute -Yoink- and I have no clue how it made it into the game. Like is 343 full of illiterate people or did <mark>REDACTED</mark> sneak it into the final game without anyone realizing. Things like Tanaka’s speech, master chief going awol, Buck’s FIRST damn line of dialogue are all examples of how not to write dialogue. This writing is lazy and is disappointing because Halo is known for good writing and storytelling.
2.Gameplay. I don’t know how but the AI in a game in 2015 is worse than in 2004. Like what the -Yoink- is this -Yoink-? Squad based mechanics? Clambering? Spartan charge, spartan dash, thruster pack, ADS like just stop. Just stop. Why did we need to turn spartans into Iron man? Why did Halo need to become fortnite and have revives? I don’t know what the thought process was when putting in the squad base mechanics. Let’s make it so you always have 3 spartans following you at all times. Lets also make it so they never shoot unless you specific tell them to. Also don’t make them revive unless you specifically tell them too? Also just make them -Yoinking!- retarded because this is a squad based game and we’re going to remove split screen. It doesn’t make sense. There is one spot in Swords of Sanghelios I got stuck on for 2 or 3 deaths where a sniper jackal absolutely rapes you right as you come in and while your “squad” is reviving you he rapes all 3 of them to. It’s ridiculous. And the worst part is that we didn’t need this in the first place. What was wrong with marines that didn’t stick with you long but were good while you had them. In the level glassed when you get in the warthog your damn teammates will get in the mongooses next to you. Like no -Yoink- come get on this damn turret and shoot some -Yoinks!-. It took like 5 minutes to ping the vehicle and get in the driver seat before they did without having the ping reset. It is awful. Even worse is the damn spartan abilities. Since when can chief charge and use a thruster pack. Since when does the battle rifle have a COD scope on it. It doesn’t make sense. They changed stuff for the sake of change. It’s too much. What was great about halo was just jumping around with a BR and blasting grunts. None of this levitate in the air laser you in the face into a ground pound thruster charge -Yoink-. It’s dumb and excessive.
- No connection to the antagonists and protagonists. Who the -Yoink- is Olympia Vale? Holly Tanaka? Now I don’t do expanded lore but I also know who Blue team is. Most people don’t. Most people go who are you? Who are you? Don’t know who you are but you are kinda thicc though. This ruins the story in a way because if any of those characters died I wouldn’t give a -Yoink-. I am not emotionally attached to them. I grew up with halo CE and 2. I only played 3 a few years ago because I never had it as a kid and holy -Yoink- I was in damn TEARS at the end of that game. That was an emotional -Yoink- rollercoaster. Johnson made me cry like a -Yoink-. It was so sad and so powerful at the same time. My favorite scene is when Miranda points a magnum at Johnson’s head knowing what she has to do but can’t do it and Johnson says, “Do it, me and then you, now” I’m all glued to the screen wondering if Miranda is gonna kill her father figure for the sake of the universe. And then Truth kills her. It is so powerful because one it has a death and two you get the feeling of oh know, did we just lose? If this happened in Halo 5 no one would care. I certainly wouldn’t because I don’t care if any of these characters die, live, or even succeed in whatever they’re tasked to do. Locke is meant to be the new chief and he is played like a -Yoink- -Yoink- throughout the whole thing. What the hell even is the warden? In one of the final missions with exuberant witness(my personal fav in halo 5 btw) she says that warden wasn’t promethean. So what the hell is he? Why does he serve Cortana? And it’s not like this is some side villain so it doesn’t matter, this is the -Yoink- main villain. You fight this -Yoink- 7 times and you don’t even know what he is or why he does the stuff he does. This is the worst possible way to make a villain. He has less screen time than all these other people but is more relevant at least. Like why the hell is Tanaka, Vale, Fred, Linda, and Kelly in the game. We know Buck because he was an ODST in another game. We are told that Locke is some big assassin and he’s the main protagonist so you kinda have to go with it. But all these other characters do nothing for the narrative or anything in general. Even Palmer, Lasky, and Halsey if you wanna get super critical do nothing for the narrative expect advance the story a couple times. None of them are comic relief, badass sidekick, super smart nerds expect for maybe vale. They have no emotions. so therefore you have no emotion so then the story dies.
I’m going to have to stop. I could talk about this -Yoink- stain for hours and use 20,000 characters on it(if ur interested check my profile for my Insta and we can chat) I’ve almost reached 7500 characters which is just insane because you should not need 7500 to explain why a campaign in a video game is crap.