[11/27/2023]
The end of the Bungie era of Halo. Where to go for the next main entry of the series than back? Where the original trilogy told a tale of hope admist a war where the odds are stacked against you with the Master Chief, Halo: Reach tells one of what happens when that uphill battle can't be beaten.
As a prequel, this game brings back some design choices from the first game. Health and fall damage return, although health is a bit easier to work with as it'll regenerate up to a certain point depending on how much you have. Some of the weapons you find in the game are also unique to it, which is a shame since I like some of them. The Needle Rifle supercombines in 3 shots... and that's it, really. The DMR's okay, the Concussion and Focus Rifles can go. The vehicles could also stay in the past. The Falcon is a budget Hornet which was replaced by the Wasp anyway, and the Revenant is just a mini Wraith. The obsolescence of these things just adds to the fact that this is a prequel, so them never coming back makes sense. This game's soundtrack has an undertone of desperation, but also has those moments of where you feel like you're making a difference fighting back. Key word: feel.
This game's greatest assets are the tone and characters. This is a losing battle, and if you've paid attention to the dialogue in Halo 1 and 2, you'd have known that by now. Even then, the fun of a prequel isn't in what happens. It's in how it happens. Returning to areas you've been to earlier in the campaign, burning and devoid of life, makes you wonder what or who else might fall to the Covenant next. The characters surrounding you serve to add to it, too. Noble Team is made of Spartans not individually as strong as Master Chief himself, but they make up for it with their coordination and numbers. With their own roles, personalities, and faces that we actually get to see, we witness them getting picked off one by one to emphasize just how strong the Covenant is, and how hopeless the war feels. Ultimately, you indirectly lead to the entire main Halo trilogy, and thus save all of humanity, at the cost of your own life.
After 4 games of being a hero and saving the day, the Halo franchise gets a major shift in tone, so this one is a standout as both a game and an entry in the series. Bungie ending their time with Halo with a far more bleak tone and only having a glimmer of hope at the end as the hero of our tale might be a reflection of them and the Halo series at that point in time (we know how that went). Bungie may have been able to seee what happens from outside, but Noble Six won't get to see the end of their own story. They don't know if their sacrifice actually meant anything. They have nothing but blind hope.
Ain't that a bitch?
The end of the Bungie era of Halo. Where to go for the next main entry of the series than back? Where the original trilogy told a tale of hope admist a war where the odds are stacked against you with the Master Chief, Halo: Reach tells one of what happens when that uphill battle can't be beaten.
As a prequel, this game brings back some design choices from the first game. Health and fall damage return, although health is a bit easier to work with as it'll regenerate up to a certain point depending on how much you have. Some of the weapons you find in the game are also unique to it, which is a shame since I like some of them. The Needle Rifle supercombines in 3 shots... and that's it, really. The DMR's okay, the Concussion and Focus Rifles can go. The vehicles could also stay in the past. The Falcon is a budget Hornet which was replaced by the Wasp anyway, and the Revenant is just a mini Wraith. The obsolescence of these things just adds to the fact that this is a prequel, so them never coming back makes sense. This game's soundtrack has an undertone of desperation, but also has those moments of where you feel like you're making a difference fighting back. Key word: feel.
This game's greatest assets are the tone and characters. This is a losing battle, and if you've paid attention to the dialogue in Halo 1 and 2, you'd have known that by now. Even then, the fun of a prequel isn't in what happens. It's in how it happens. Returning to areas you've been to earlier in the campaign, burning and devoid of life, makes you wonder what or who else might fall to the Covenant next. The characters surrounding you serve to add to it, too. Noble Team is made of Spartans not individually as strong as Master Chief himself, but they make up for it with their coordination and numbers. With their own roles, personalities, and faces that we actually get to see, we witness them getting picked off one by one to emphasize just how strong the Covenant is, and how hopeless the war feels. Ultimately, you indirectly lead to the entire main Halo trilogy, and thus save all of humanity, at the cost of your own life.
After 4 games of being a hero and saving the day, the Halo franchise gets a major shift in tone, so this one is a standout as both a game and an entry in the series. Bungie ending their time with Halo with a far more bleak tone and only having a glimmer of hope at the end as the hero of our tale might be a reflection of them and the Halo series at that point in time (we know how that went). Bungie may have been able to seee what happens from outside, but Noble Six won't get to see the end of their own story. They don't know if their sacrifice actually meant anything. They have nothing but blind hope.
Ain't that a bitch?