Halo Infinite wears its Combat Evolved inspiration on its sleeve, but feels more like a "greatest hits" of the entire franchise, with surprising deep cuts from all over.
Halo Infinite's open world section takes a little bit to get going and is slow to convince the audience of it's value, but I'm not sure that value is really better off than a traditional linear level progression with unique set pieces. Liberating FOBs and taking out High Value Targets is alright busy work, but the campaign's natural story progression seldom encourages you to go out of your way to do them, and the majority of them are only really worth playing because, well, it's more Halo.
Infinite's best combat encounters are hands down the linear Forerunner dungeons - Some excellently satisfying combat design here is unfortunately squandered however, as the game's structure strips each of these more higher quality combat encounters of an identity they might have had in a more traditional Halo title, with tightly planned out vehicle sections, scripted set-pieces, and brilliant musical queues; Some of the combat in Infinite is the best it's been in the franchise, but upon reminiscing over it, I simply couldn't tell you what level it was a part of, or even distinguish between the levels at all.
The game's open combat is fine, but lacks the luxury of refinement given how open ended those scenarios are. Disappointingly, many enemy classes and bosses detract from the core combat loop by becoming damage sponges, that don't react very interestingly to taking damage, while others seem to only be able to take as much damage as their vanilla versions - It's inconsistent, and not very satisfying. It's true that Halo Infinite has the best boss fights of the entire franchise, but that's a notably low bar to clear.
Music is very high quality, if not the most bombastic or striking. The narrative is mostly pretty thin, offering a B plot that lore savvy fans will enjoy, and an A plot, that while well performed and decently written, doesn't satisfy as much as it could.
Halo Infinite is 343's best Halo to date when considered from all angles, but doesn't quite reach the highs of the original trilogy, or perhaps even the very highest of highs from the other titles, but it is, if nothing else, very solid.
Also it's not Halo 5 so that's a win lol
Halo Infinite's open world section takes a little bit to get going and is slow to convince the audience of it's value, but I'm not sure that value is really better off than a traditional linear level progression with unique set pieces. Liberating FOBs and taking out High Value Targets is alright busy work, but the campaign's natural story progression seldom encourages you to go out of your way to do them, and the majority of them are only really worth playing because, well, it's more Halo.
Infinite's best combat encounters are hands down the linear Forerunner dungeons - Some excellently satisfying combat design here is unfortunately squandered however, as the game's structure strips each of these more higher quality combat encounters of an identity they might have had in a more traditional Halo title, with tightly planned out vehicle sections, scripted set-pieces, and brilliant musical queues; Some of the combat in Infinite is the best it's been in the franchise, but upon reminiscing over it, I simply couldn't tell you what level it was a part of, or even distinguish between the levels at all.
The game's open combat is fine, but lacks the luxury of refinement given how open ended those scenarios are. Disappointingly, many enemy classes and bosses detract from the core combat loop by becoming damage sponges, that don't react very interestingly to taking damage, while others seem to only be able to take as much damage as their vanilla versions - It's inconsistent, and not very satisfying. It's true that Halo Infinite has the best boss fights of the entire franchise, but that's a notably low bar to clear.
Music is very high quality, if not the most bombastic or striking. The narrative is mostly pretty thin, offering a B plot that lore savvy fans will enjoy, and an A plot, that while well performed and decently written, doesn't satisfy as much as it could.
Halo Infinite is 343's best Halo to date when considered from all angles, but doesn't quite reach the highs of the original trilogy, or perhaps even the very highest of highs from the other titles, but it is, if nothing else, very solid.
Also it's not Halo 5 so that's a win lol