Why the story is bad with spoilers.

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

So maybe you have read my review of why its bad without spoilers, now im going to develop howping someone from 343 reads this. I know some fo you out there loved the story, and that is great for you, you are welcome to bash me and express your opinion on the subject. Also I did enjot rhe gameplay of the campaign a lot. Its really fun, this rant is only against the story.

My first problem with the campaign is the absurd amount of characters in this “short” game. We have teams osiris (4 new characters) then we have Linda, Kelly and Fred that while present in the expanded universe are new to the game and so must be properly introduced to the majority of players. Next we have Palmer from the not very well recieved spartan ops making her debut in campaign and Halsey from books and spartan ops. Finally we have returning campaign characters including master chief, cortanna, the arbiter and Lasky. That is the number of characters that hace importance to the story. If you want to fully understand whats happening you need to know the background and story of 13 different characters, most of them having never appeared in the main campaign if the game.

Great storys with many characters exist in all for of media. In books you have Peace and war, and Les Miserables, in tv series you have the Wire, Game of Thrones, in anime or cartoon you can see that full metal alchemist and avatar the last airbender all succesfully get away with a large number of characters. They do so by introducing them one by one, not presenting a new one untill they have at least developed the present ones to a certain extent. And most important of all, they all are presented and developed in the same media. That is why i beliave most people dont understand what is going on. You are presented in mission 1 with 4 new characters that are hunting halsey, a character never present in campaign, the 15 min later you are presented with 3 new characters form the expanded universe that mos people know nothing about. And they still have no idea who Osiris is. All this game is just presenting characters expecting people to know who they are and their motivations, and most players just wont know who they are. Then you have the protagonist problem. In les miserables Jean Valjean is the lead, in avatar its aang. In game of thrones Its ned stark for season 1 (XD). The world is presented to you from a stable perspective that is the main character. But here the main character (Lock) is pretty bland. Its just a dude following orders chasing after chief. The world presented by him isnt very intresting to be honest.

The next problem I have is the return of cortana. Most of halo 4 is dedicated to the process of her dying. And it was pretty smoth and well done to be honest. You could see her decay until you knew she would die. It was a gradual process that not only developed her, but also the chief. All that to be desregarded in halo 6. By the end of mission 1 you already know she is alive. It took her a game of 6 hours to die. Then she revives in 15 minutes. If you where going to bring her back at least make it subtle. Hint at her return in halo 5 and then bring her back in halo 6. The way it was done makes halo 4 feel irrelevant.

In third place is Forcing you to like Lock. Chief has 3 missions, and I surprisingly have no major problem with that. This is Lock story. I do have a problem with osiris rescuing Blue team from cortana. Blue team appears so little in this game that I cannot help but wonder if one of the reasons to include them at all was for Osiris to recue them. It feels kind of forced. And so does cortana transition into a vilain in just 1 game. WHY JUST 1 GAME?

Then its the ending. That is not an ending. It ends just in the transition from middle to final act. When the main plot point is revealed and suddenly almos all makes scence, then it just ends. That is very anticlimatic.

Finally, I think that after the trailers and hunt the truth season 1 I expected more. Most of the advertisement led us to beliave that this eas going to be ONI sending lock in a mission to kill chief to cover their own actions in the past. It just sounds like a better game to me. Lock trying evolving from ONI pawn into a real spartan. Hell maybe make him shoot chief like in the trailer. That would have been cool, to play as the vilain like in halo 2 and then make him evolve and show the player that evolution as a character.But in this game they didnt go that route. Lock is just a bland character with borring motivations and almost no evolution at all. Its just dissapoiting to me really.

So that it. I still loved the game honestly, even if warzone doesnt work here in south america because the servers are down since launch, I still loved the gameplay and im spending a lot of time in arena happy with my purchase. I just hope they do a better job in halo 6. Bring some of the old writers back, not a fan of the current team that wrote spartan ops and this game sadly.

2

For what it was, I enjoyed it. The gameplay was solid, the setpieces were fun and it took us to some interesting places. Although…

I feel like we should have had all of Locke’s Campaign, then played through Chief’s side (say 5ish missions. Let’s be fair, Blue Team’s story only really stretched to around that). Cortana got revealed and set up as the big bad way too early.
Locke’s Campaign should have been spent hunting Chief and the truth like the the marketing sold us on; Osiris could have done with some more developement too: the bits and pieces we do get seem slightly forced in: Cortana’s whole mind attack in the final level didn’t really have enough set up to be emotionally rewarding. Basically, we should have been mostly in the dark about Cortana (Warden should have done most of the bad guy stuff for Locke) until we freed Blue Team from the Cryptum, who tells us about Cortana and then we see it from their side, with a final mission involving both teams.

I’d give the story a 9. The overall plot was good, and sets up Halo 6 to have an epic all out Campaign, but I think how we experienced the events could have been done better.

3

> 2533274832948697;1:
> So maybe you have read my review of why its bad without spoilers, now im going to develop howping someone from 343 reads this. I know some fo you out there loved the story, and that is great for you, you are welcome to bash me and express your opinion on the subject. Also I did enjot rhe gameplay of the campaign a lot. Its really fun, this rant is only against the story.
>
> My first problem with the campaign is the absurd amount of characters in this “short” game. We have teams osiris (4 new characters) then we have Linda, Kelly and Fred that while present in the expanded universe are new to the game and so must be properly introduced to the majority of players. Next we have Palmer from the not very well recieved spartan ops making her debut in campaign and Halsey from books and spartan ops. Finally we have returning campaign characters including master chief, cortanna, the arbiter and Lasky. That is the number of characters that hace importance to the story. If you want to fully understand whats happening you need to know the background and story of 13 different characters, most of them having never appeared in the main campaign if the game.
> Great storys with many characters exist in all for of media. In books you have Peace and war, and Les Miserables, in tv series you have the Wire, Game of Thrones, in anime or cartoon you can see that full metal alchemist and avatar the last airbender all succesfully get away with a large number of characters. They do so by introducing them one by one, not presenting a new one untill they have at least developed the present ones to a certain extent. And most important of all, they all are presented and developed in the same media. That is why i beliave most people dont understand what is going on. You are presented in mission 1 with 4 new characters that are hunting halsey, a character never present in campaign, the 15 min later you are presented with 3 new characters form the expanded universe that mos people know nothing about. And they still have no idea who Osiris is. All this game is just presenting characters expecting people to know who they are and their motivations, and most players just wont know who they are. Then you have the protagonist problem. In les miserables Jean Valjean is the lead, in avatar its aang. In game of thrones Its ned stark for season 1 (XD). The world is presented to you from a stable perspective that is the main character. But here the main character (Lock) is pretty bland. Its just a dude following orders chasing after chief. The world presented by him isnt very intresting to be honest.
>
> The next problem I have is the return of cortana. Most of halo 4 is dedicated to the process of her dying. And it was pretty smoth and well done to be honest. You could see her decay until you knew she would die. It was a gradual process that not only developed her, but also the chief. All that to be desregarded in halo 6. By the end of mission 1 you already know she is alive. It took her a game of 6 hours to die. Then she revives in 15 minutes. If you where going to bring her back at least make it subtle. Hint at her return in halo 5 and then bring her back in halo 6. The way it was done makes halo 4 feel irrelevant.
>
> Then its the ending. That is not an ending. It ends just in the transition from middle to final act. When the main plot point is revealed and suddenly almos all makes scence, then it just ends. That is very anticlimatic.
>
> Finally, I think that after the trailers and hunt the truth season 1 I expected more. Most of the advertisement led us to beliave that this eas going to be ONI sending lock in a mission to kill chief to cover their own actions in the past. It just sounds like a better game to me. Lock trying evolving from ONI pawn into a real spartan. Hell maybe make him shoot chief like in the trailer. That would have been cool, to play as the vilain like in halo 2 and then make him evolve and show the player that evolution as a character.But in this game they didnt go that route. Lock is just a bland character with borring motivations and almost no evolution at all. Its just dissapoiting to me really.

You had nearly 15 years to read up on Blue Team. This is the 5th (FIFTH!!!) numbered installment and 8th/10th (!!!) total installment (if you include the windows Spartan games) to the series. One doesn’t enter this far into a game, or media, series expecting to have the entire setup explained to them (what’s the point in past installments then? Also, long time fans might feel a little insulted.).
Cortana. Agree very much here, but I did see a possibility of her survival when SPops season 2 came out with the Janus Key. Haven’t read any Escalation yet so don’t know the details of what’s happened with this. Otherwise, yes, it definitely feels like they made an arc of Halo 4 worthless.
Ending. Was Halo 2 not the same? 343 has simply given an obvious start for the next installment (game or DLC) as Halo 2 did.
Marketing. Agree and disagree. Yes, what they showed was not what they gave, but instead made us eager to find out what they would give. That’s the advertising business for you. No, I’ve learned to take all forms of advertising, for anything, with a grain of salt.

4

Your comment about the final act… since there really is none in Halo 5, then Halo 6 will be the entire final act, and I think I’m okay with that. VERY okay, actually.

5

This story skewed off in a completely different direction than what it was set up to be. Is this saga supposed to be the forerunners and the humans or what? Halo 3 set up an entry that finally brings the forerunners into the scene, Halo 4 does just that and introduces the Didact, the Librarian etc. Halo 4’s ending pretty much tells us the Didact is still at arge. Now there’s pretty much no forerunners to be seen (except the warden), and instead is about Cortana wanting eternal life for her and all AI’s. Also all this campaigning about hunting the truth about chief, all this propaganda and cover ups from ONI. Where was all this stuff!?.

6

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> You had nearly 15 years to read up on Blue Team. This is the 5th (FIFTH!!!) numbered installment and 8th/10th (!!!) total installment (if you include the windows Spartan games) to the series. One doesn’t enter this far into a game, or media, series expecting to have the entire setup explained to them (what’s the point in past installments then? Also, long time fans might feel a little insulted.).
> Cortana. Agree very much here, but I did see a possibility of her survival when SPops season 2 came out with the Janus Key. Haven’t read any Escalation yet so don’t know the details of what’s happened with this. Otherwise, yes, it definitely feels like they made an arc of Halo 4 worthless.
> Ending. Was Halo 2 not the same? 343 has simply given an obvious start for the next installment (game or DLC) as Halo 2 did.
> Marketing. Agree and disagree. Yes, what they showed was not what they gave, but instead made us eager to find out what they would give. That’s the advertising business for you. No, I’ve learned to take all forms of advertising, for anything, with a grain of salt.

Really? Star Wars episode 7 is coming out; you had over 30 years to read up. Do you need to? No. Because it has good story telling and you don’t need to. You fully understand everything in the movies.