CountZeroOr
2021
This review contains spoilers
The Halo series, from the jump, is a series that is known for creating the illusion of large open spaces for the player to explore, especially through the various levels of the game that combine large driving sequences with areas where the player has to get out and plunge into various Forerunner or Covenant facilities. So, by all rights, Halo Infinite just going full Open World game should be the right call, right? Right?
The core fundamental problem with Halo Infinite as an Open World game, compared with the other titles in the series is that the earlier titles created the illusion of being a larger open space – they did an excellent job of creating channels for the player to go into, with places where the route branches to allow for different playstyles, while having those routes come back together at similar key points along the track. On the other hand, the wide open areas in Halo Infinite’s Early game feel more directionless, in ways that also make them feel like they’d be rather frustrating to play co-op (another of the Halo series’ long-running strengths).
Bits and pieces of the game’s background are told through audiologs from various doomed groups of UNSC holdouts, along with reports from the Banished – including our only encounters, in audio, with Lasky & Halsey.
This is also all aggravated with some of the issues with the game’s story. Halo 5 wrapped on a really strong cliffhanger. Cortana had gotten a bunch of the various AIs that the UNSC had depended on for years to bond together and revolt against humanity, while also taking on the Covenant and the new faction of the Banished. By the conclusion of Halo 5, some AI, like the shipboard AI of the Infinity, were still loyal, but Humanity, and the Covenant themselves, were now on the ropes, and Cortana had taken control of a Halo Ring, and was busting out some familiar humming that would be disconcerting to long time fans of the series.
By the start of Halo Infinite, it feels like instead it’s all over but the crying. We open with the Banished storming the Infinite, beating Master Chief and tossing him out of a docking bay, the ship being consumed in flames, while on the other hand, the Halo ring that Cortana had taken over has had a big chunk blown out of it, and Cortana herself is dead. We have no sense of how we got here, or what trials and tribulations it took to come to this point. Additionally, many of the supporting characters who have been introduced in past games, and played a major role in 5, like Halsey, like Spartan Jameson Locke and his team, like Captain Laskey, are missing with no information on their ultimate fate.
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Halo 4 & 5 had an interesting plot, with Cortana’s rampancy and apparent demise in 4, leading to her re-appearance and change to seeming villainy in Halo 5, with the question lying on where she’d go next. Would 343 Industries use her as an analog of Durandal from the Marathon games, as a character who is revealed to ultimately be something of a manipulative antihero whose acts are planned as a long-game method of saving humanity? No – she instead does some truly villainous stuff mostly off-camera, before half-getting killed, half-committing suicide before the start of the game, with a cutscene at the end attempting provide our emotional closure.
It’s ultimately very disappointing in terms of the game’s story, and a little disappointing in terms of the game’s play. I honestly would have preferred a game that fit the archetypes of the earlier Halo titles – the introduction of 4-player co-op with AI-controlled teammates to allow for drop-in-drop-out co-op in Halo 5 was an excellent idea, and I’d hoped they were going to run with the concept here, but they didn’t, presumably because they couldn’t get the AI Spartan team-mates to work in the planned open-world environments.
It makes for a game where I want to like it more than I do. I do like the Halo series a lot, especially for its story, and what we got doesn’t quite cut it. It’s very much a bummer.
The core fundamental problem with Halo Infinite as an Open World game, compared with the other titles in the series is that the earlier titles created the illusion of being a larger open space – they did an excellent job of creating channels for the player to go into, with places where the route branches to allow for different playstyles, while having those routes come back together at similar key points along the track. On the other hand, the wide open areas in Halo Infinite’s Early game feel more directionless, in ways that also make them feel like they’d be rather frustrating to play co-op (another of the Halo series’ long-running strengths).
Bits and pieces of the game’s background are told through audiologs from various doomed groups of UNSC holdouts, along with reports from the Banished – including our only encounters, in audio, with Lasky & Halsey.
This is also all aggravated with some of the issues with the game’s story. Halo 5 wrapped on a really strong cliffhanger. Cortana had gotten a bunch of the various AIs that the UNSC had depended on for years to bond together and revolt against humanity, while also taking on the Covenant and the new faction of the Banished. By the conclusion of Halo 5, some AI, like the shipboard AI of the Infinity, were still loyal, but Humanity, and the Covenant themselves, were now on the ropes, and Cortana had taken control of a Halo Ring, and was busting out some familiar humming that would be disconcerting to long time fans of the series.
By the start of Halo Infinite, it feels like instead it’s all over but the crying. We open with the Banished storming the Infinite, beating Master Chief and tossing him out of a docking bay, the ship being consumed in flames, while on the other hand, the Halo ring that Cortana had taken over has had a big chunk blown out of it, and Cortana herself is dead. We have no sense of how we got here, or what trials and tribulations it took to come to this point. Additionally, many of the supporting characters who have been introduced in past games, and played a major role in 5, like Halsey, like Spartan Jameson Locke and his team, like Captain Laskey, are missing with no information on their ultimate fate.
Advertisements
Report this ad
Halo 4 & 5 had an interesting plot, with Cortana’s rampancy and apparent demise in 4, leading to her re-appearance and change to seeming villainy in Halo 5, with the question lying on where she’d go next. Would 343 Industries use her as an analog of Durandal from the Marathon games, as a character who is revealed to ultimately be something of a manipulative antihero whose acts are planned as a long-game method of saving humanity? No – she instead does some truly villainous stuff mostly off-camera, before half-getting killed, half-committing suicide before the start of the game, with a cutscene at the end attempting provide our emotional closure.
It’s ultimately very disappointing in terms of the game’s story, and a little disappointing in terms of the game’s play. I honestly would have preferred a game that fit the archetypes of the earlier Halo titles – the introduction of 4-player co-op with AI-controlled teammates to allow for drop-in-drop-out co-op in Halo 5 was an excellent idea, and I’d hoped they were going to run with the concept here, but they didn’t, presumably because they couldn’t get the AI Spartan team-mates to work in the planned open-world environments.
It makes for a game where I want to like it more than I do. I do like the Halo series a lot, especially for its story, and what we got doesn’t quite cut it. It’s very much a bummer.
This review contains spoilers
Trails in the Sky SC starts very quickly after Trails in the Sky FC left off, with Joshua having skipped out following the revelation that the antagonist group of Ouroboros knows he used to be one of their number, and after confessing his feelings to Estelle. This game in turn picks up with Estelle going on further training as a Bracer, before picking up Joshua’s trail, tracking him down while also attempting to thwart the various elements of Ouroboros’ plan – because Estelle always gets her man, and dammit, Joshua is her man. (Cue awkward anime blushing). This in turn takes you through a lot of the previous environments from the earlier games, where you get to chat with a lot of the characters who you’d met before, see how the world has developed over a time-skip of a few months, and level up further and develop new abilities, as you learn more about the setting.
On the one hand, this could make the game feel cheap – you’re re-using a lot of environments, including some dungeon maps, from the first game, along with some character portraits. However, where the game clearly saves in production design, it makes up for it in the writing. This is a clear case of the game showing that using a serialized narrative structure between games, with game-assets being consciously and deliberately re-used with intent, can actually make for a richer world.
To put it another way, you don’t think Friends is being cheap for having the characters hang out at Central Perk, you think that’s a logical place for the characters to hang out, and maintaining that environment while introducing characters to it – as customers, as employees – enriches the world. The same applies here. It does also mean that when we go into entirely new areas – like a floating, Castle In The Sky-esque city in the game’s final chapter – those moves have considerably more impact, because we’re stepping outside of our narrative comfort zone, and the writing reflects it with the characters reactions.
Oh, and those reactions are still solid – the character portraits are great, and Estelle continues to have great reaction faces (to the point that I submitted one to the Axe of the Blood God Discord as an emote). The romance aspect of the story is generally handled well. They do a good job of using the development of Joshua’s backstory as a previous agent of Ouroboros who had been freed by Cassius Bright to try and make the idea that a romance between Joshua and Estelle, as adoptive siblings, less squicky. It kinda works – they basically set up that they were actually older than was initially implied when Joshua was adopted, and Joshua had a considerable amount of life experiences (including some very traumatic life experiences) before meeting Cassius. This isn’t going to fly with everyone, but it works well enough here to carry the rest of the story, and the Estelle/Joshua relationship.
The gameplay is generally unchanged from First Chapter – the biggest addition to the game is the ability to upgrade slots in your Orbments, allowing for more powerful Sepiths to be equipped and with that additional effects on your characters’ stats, and more powerful spells. It does change up how your character builds work, combined with the inclusion of more spells that will buff damage and defense. It does a good job of striking a balance of making sure that all the knowledge of how to develop your characters and how to manage combat from FC is still useful, while providing new wrinkles to keep players engaged beyond the story. It’s a good way of handling the Final Fantasy situation with the PS1 games: “These games need to recognizably play like a Final Fantasy game, while not being mechanically identical to the last game that came out,” while also dealing with the fact that they’re also maintaining continuity of setting between games, and some of the mechanics are inherently tied to the setting.
If you played Trails in the Sky FC, and enjoyed it, really you need to pick up SC because the story in FC isn’t actually finished, but you can be confident that it will come to a satisfying conclusion in SC. If you haven’t played FC yet – jumping in at SC will just confuse you. It does a decent job at reiterating some of the important plot points from the last game, but it’s done in the context of “That last game was over 80 hours, this game is also about that length, you’re going to need a reminder,” not “If you’re new to the series, here’s what you need to know.”
On the one hand, this could make the game feel cheap – you’re re-using a lot of environments, including some dungeon maps, from the first game, along with some character portraits. However, where the game clearly saves in production design, it makes up for it in the writing. This is a clear case of the game showing that using a serialized narrative structure between games, with game-assets being consciously and deliberately re-used with intent, can actually make for a richer world.
To put it another way, you don’t think Friends is being cheap for having the characters hang out at Central Perk, you think that’s a logical place for the characters to hang out, and maintaining that environment while introducing characters to it – as customers, as employees – enriches the world. The same applies here. It does also mean that when we go into entirely new areas – like a floating, Castle In The Sky-esque city in the game’s final chapter – those moves have considerably more impact, because we’re stepping outside of our narrative comfort zone, and the writing reflects it with the characters reactions.
Oh, and those reactions are still solid – the character portraits are great, and Estelle continues to have great reaction faces (to the point that I submitted one to the Axe of the Blood God Discord as an emote). The romance aspect of the story is generally handled well. They do a good job of using the development of Joshua’s backstory as a previous agent of Ouroboros who had been freed by Cassius Bright to try and make the idea that a romance between Joshua and Estelle, as adoptive siblings, less squicky. It kinda works – they basically set up that they were actually older than was initially implied when Joshua was adopted, and Joshua had a considerable amount of life experiences (including some very traumatic life experiences) before meeting Cassius. This isn’t going to fly with everyone, but it works well enough here to carry the rest of the story, and the Estelle/Joshua relationship.
The gameplay is generally unchanged from First Chapter – the biggest addition to the game is the ability to upgrade slots in your Orbments, allowing for more powerful Sepiths to be equipped and with that additional effects on your characters’ stats, and more powerful spells. It does change up how your character builds work, combined with the inclusion of more spells that will buff damage and defense. It does a good job of striking a balance of making sure that all the knowledge of how to develop your characters and how to manage combat from FC is still useful, while providing new wrinkles to keep players engaged beyond the story. It’s a good way of handling the Final Fantasy situation with the PS1 games: “These games need to recognizably play like a Final Fantasy game, while not being mechanically identical to the last game that came out,” while also dealing with the fact that they’re also maintaining continuity of setting between games, and some of the mechanics are inherently tied to the setting.
If you played Trails in the Sky FC, and enjoyed it, really you need to pick up SC because the story in FC isn’t actually finished, but you can be confident that it will come to a satisfying conclusion in SC. If you haven’t played FC yet – jumping in at SC will just confuse you. It does a decent job at reiterating some of the important plot points from the last game, but it’s done in the context of “That last game was over 80 hours, this game is also about that length, you’re going to need a reminder,” not “If you’re new to the series, here’s what you need to know.”