I can’t believe that this game (the campaign at least) aged so fucking gracefully. The fact that this game has better enemy AI and level design than most modern AAA releases stands for how ahead of its time Combat Evolved was. This game is heralded as a pioneer in console shooters and the gaming industry did go a bit overboard with trying to imitate its glory, and we left PC Boomer Shooters as an afterthought for a while, but is that really the fault of the game itself?

Does Halo have gameplay that stood the test of time? Yes. Does it have a robust and tactical sandbox that continues to put other shooters to shame? Hell yeah! Are it’s story beats and overall atmosphere still dramatic and engaging, to the point that someone playing it for the first time 18 years after it’s release (cough me cough) is still viscerally effected by the introduction of the Flood? I think so at least!

Did it’s graphical fidelity hold up well?

Eh????

Well, yes and no. Sure it’s ass was kicked by Halo 2, a game released 3 years later on the same hardware, but it still has the strongest art style in the series, and Bungie went super duper far with the graphical limitations. The sheer amount of atmosphere, drama, and mood the game can still pull off despite being so blockly and rough stands to show how damn good the overall direction (and sparse voice acting) was.

In all I still think Halo 3 is the best game in the franchise because both the multiplayer and the campaign are amazing (not to mention Forge). But I still think CE is my favorite single player experience of the bunch, and probably still is one of the best single player FPSs of all time. Sure, Library sucks, later levels are sometimes copy/pasted from earlier ones, the flood are not nearly engaging as the Covenant, and it’s not the greatest story ever told in a videogame, but it’s still a fantastic piece of gaming history that is still worth playing OVER TWO FUCKING DECADES since it’s release. Just don’t play it on Anniversary graphics, please.

(Review of the MCC multiplayer)

Can’t find too many matches all that often but it’s still fun as shit. Crazy-ass fighting game level tech to master and a great map lineup. A ton of interesting (though not super well implemented) ideas and concepts and weapons and vehicles are introduced to further enhance and compound upon CE’s comparatively small combat sandbox. When you have a game as good as Combat Evolved, all you have to do is give us more. While CE’s campaign is still one of the best single player shooters ever made, the multiplayer has not aged nearly as well, visually and mechanically. Halo 2 was where Bungie really began taking strides with gameplay, polishing the game with a very obvious visual and mechanical upgrade despite being just 3 years apart and in the same console as CE. It’s a much smoother, less slippery, and more refined experience which makes the smart decision to not have the Pistol be the best weapon in the game, because the pistol is fucking boring. Instead, there are a ton of cool new weapons that are each viable in their own right. 2 also added a ton of mainstays for the series such as the Battle Rifle and the iconic Energy sword. It’s really cool to see Bungie’s ideas and artstyle continue to evolve between each title. Despite being a transitionary, janky, and rushed product, Halo 2 still holds up incredibly well and offers enough distinctions from other games in the series (such as playable elites, duel wielding, and map selection) that it’s multiplayer is still worth coming back to. Anniversary definitely did the campaign justice with some jaw-dropping, booba-tier AWOOGA graphics, but aside from sound design the multiplayer doesn’t feel nearly as complete and more like bonus content, leaving Halo 2’s legendary multiplayer an experience worth revisiting.

I have heard horror stories about the games launch state, but god damn has it brushed itself off and picked itself back up. I admire 343’s dedication to fixing up this mess of a product into one of the greatest compilations ever made. Halo 2 Anniversary alone deserves a full star, holy crap the graphics and sound design are so fucking good, unlike CE Anniversary. I just wish there were more multiplayer maps for 2 anniversary. As of the date I’m writing this, the MCC is not only a complete package, having added Reach and a much more in-depth customization system, but it has its own features to differentiate it from the individual games such as weapon and vehicle skins, a very consumer-friendly (FREE) battle pass, a ranking system, and even some new maps and skulls! Also porting it to PC as well as allowing for Keyboard and Mouse configuration is amazing. Halo is on PC now and it’s not shit like it was with the Gearbox ports! That’s legitimately amazing.

Some features I would like to see in the future are a map voting system and a more accessible way of sharing Forge maps and custom games. (THE LATTER REQUEST IS NOW OUTDATED. AWESOME.)
I wouldn’t mind having Halo 5, Halo Wars 1 and 2, and the Spartan Assualts added, though this is a pretty tall order. Are these necessarily good games? Not really. But would It be fun to try them out without having to pay for them? Yeah, it would. My dream would be to rework the Halo 5 customization and egregious microtransaction system into a more consumer friendly framework like they did with their current battle pass system. Hell, maybe even bring Splitscreen back! I know that this is all a pipe dream, but it would make the Collection feel all the more like the definitive Halo product. Lastly, it’d be neat to have a more robust extras selection such as concept art, soundtracks, interviews, original game credits, hell, maybe even that animated mini-series would be great. Make it a celebration of all things Halo. I would love to see the Believe ads for Halo 3! Again, these would all be nice changes, but they’re not strictly necessary as the game is already well worth its price in content.

Unfortunately the playerbase is really only fixated on either 3 or Reach to consistently find matches for CE, 2, or 2 anniversary, as well as any game mode that isn’t CTF or Slayer, but that’s not really the games fault is it.

Finally, I can’t in good faith give it a perfect score just because it was in a good shape when I picked it up in 2019. Like No Mans Sky, Cyberpunk, and Fallout 76, just because your game is eventually patched doesn’t excuse the fact that you rushed out a broken, unfinished mess at launch. But in the current year, if youre Halo fan or a newcomer to the franchise, this is a damn steal of a collection for 40 bucks and an instant recommend. I hope 343 continues to expand this collection even when they move into developing Infinite, because the Halo games (except 4 and 5) have aged incredibly well and stand out as some excellent single player and multiplayer shooters.

EDIT: They added a Custom Browser finally, this compilation just keeps getting better

My Cousins literally just convinced me to redownload this game after over 4 years of not playing it. I still saved all my progress.

Anyways this is probably the best mobile game ever created. As someone obsessed with Pokemon in 2016, I was enthralled with the game even in it's bare-bones nature. Now I see that it's gotten so much more content and stuff to do... but I no longer have time to do it. I'm sorry, my days of walking around outside and looking at a screen are basically over, especially because where I live the Pokemon you can find are shit-tier. It was fun while it lasted, and at it's peak this was probably the closest thing we had to world peace.

Really enjoyable and cute. I have to say the levels felt super long, but now they feel super short, though I do like the level design. There are very frustrating difficulty spikes, there are a lot of green stars that are just "you need Cat Suit to get this," and the fixed camera simply isn't as fun as a free-moving camera. Also I don't like the cat suit, it doesn't look cool and the game is over-reliant on it. Bower's Fury is actually really good with this but has no really penalty for dying so it feels more like a tech/extended demo. These games also have a really bland art style. I see a lot of people disliking the way Odyssey looks but I think it looks incredible and, at the very least, UNIQUE! It has new concepts and new characters instead of dumb lame Pixie things.

I finally beat that fucking robot. After over 2 years of not playing this game, Because of my anticipation fro dread I had the urge to return to my save file and finish up the game. It feels weird to talk about the game with such a long gap of inactivity, but I really enjoyed it and still remember most of the main game. Samus Returns is a great return to form for Metroid as a series considering the losing streak it's been on since Other M. The game feels like a classic Metroid and MercurySteam has done a really good job reimagining this game. There are some great ideas here, such as granting the Scan feature pretty early on. It's helpful tool but the Aeon gauge makes it so you can't spam it, especially later in the game when you have more Aeon powerups. There's a sense of progression and discovery, as new powerups will only add to your toolkit in both combat and exploration instead of weakening other parts. It's satisfying to come back to an obstacle and be able to access a new puzzle or upgrade through it.

The boss fights are really fun and super well-designed. The Diggernaut fight it one of the hardest game bosses I have ever fought. I'm not kidding. He hits like a truck and his fight is like this super elaborate puzzle. Ridley is also very fun and climactic. The soundtrack is good, not fantastic, but it services the game and the bosses well. I also like the little badass animations that plays when you get a counter on Metroid bosses, or the cutscenes where she finishes them off: this game just gives Samus a lot of personality without her uttering a word, conveying this badass lone wolf type. The way she controls is also really smooth and fluid, and upgrades only add to that fluidity, and puzzles and bosses become trickier to compensate. There's always a sweet new reward for backtracking and the puzzles make you think creatively, sometimes there is more than one way to solve them. The counter-move is super satisfying to master, but you do eventually become over-reliant on it.

Unfortunately, Samus Returns is brought down by a lot of dumb decisions, including some time-wasters. The biggest complaint I have is the art style. Landscapes or pretty bland and unexpressive and the different areas aren't really distinct from each other because of it. The obstacles are pretty video gamey and obvious, I feel like the Metroid games have done good job making obstacles feel somewhat integrated in the game world, but bricks that block you're path are very obviously Video Game Obstacles and not part of any narrative. There are about 10 different regular enemy types, but they are just copy/pasted across the map with different color pallets that just mean "this one does more damage!" or "this one needs an upgrade to kill!" or "this one breaths fire!" Near the middle I got bored of the repetition, especially with the bosses. Now the bosses are really well designed individually, both in gameplay and in visuals. But there are about 8 bosses in the game, but they are copy/pasted across the map to give the illusion of content. I'm not talking about just 3-4 times either. There is one boss that you beat 17 FUCKING TIMES. I'm not kidding. I get that the premise of the game is that you're exterminating all of the Metroids and making a total of 30 Metroids (yes, 30) fits narratively, but come ON.

This is also a very linear, with very little large shortcuts aside from Chozo teleporters, making backtracking a bit of a slog. Each area is really self-contained and, while pretty large on their own don't have much connective tissue with the other areas, most likely due to the limited hardware it had to run on. Sure the teleporters help but you have to sit through a pretty long cutscene and load time to use them. The same goes for elevators and refuel stations. The former I can accept because of the hardware limitations of generating such a large world but the latter is inexcusable because they already made the Aeon refills super simple. You walk over a platform and boom, you got it back. I feel like saving should also be a quicker affair, you should just be able to save and quit as long as you're not actively in combat. One final nitpick: there are parts of this game were you have to Power Bomb multiple bricks at once in a row. That should not be a thing. All of them should just explode in a chain, it's really stupid. However the worst part of this game is how fucking loud the Aeon scan is, Jesus Christ.


I get it, I've complained a lot, but I only critique things like this that I genuinely enjoy, because I only notice these things because I was so invested in the game. It's a breath of fresh air and an instant recommend for any Metroid fan. It's a very solid title with great gameplay and a good sense of exploration, but bogged down by bland environments, a weak roster of enemies, and other really annoying little quirks. I hope that with Dread, MercurySteam can flesh out the strengths (such as the Aeon abilities, the bossfights, and the fluidity of the controls), deliver more engaging visuals, and iron out the annoying time-wasting stuff. From what I've seen that's almost exactly what they're doing, now that they've gained Nintendo's trust. Metroid: Samus Returns is a solid albeit unsurprising Metroidvania, but that is hopelessly outclassed by it's modern contemporaries in both art style and variety.

Every other part of this game, from the base game to the DLCs to Lifeblood, are all 10/10. So what's with the one star less for this DLC? It's not that I didn't enjoy the first four pantheons, and the new bosses are genuinely incredible.

So why only 4/5?

Markoth.

Well, also Pantheon of Hallownest as a whole. I must've tried this pantheon about 40 times and I haven't gotten past that bitch-ass moth motherfucker. The fact that you have to fight Zote and Failed Champion right after him with no breaks is just disheartening. The last time I attempted this brutal fucking death march I died to Traitor Lord. I have not played the game since, because I have done LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE THERE IS TO DO aside from this one final challenge and Steel Soul. It's just too, too much I'm sorry. This is coming from the guy who played the Old Hunters and found Ludwig and Laurence manageable.

Pantheon five should've either been:

A). Just all the new bosses and the super hard alt bosses like NKG and the Dream variants. Still a tough challenge.

B). Make the bench actual checkpoints . You could implement a system where you have 3-5 tires per checkpoint before kicking you all the way back so that way, players are still on their toes. Make the no checkpoints shit A BINDING, and make that the super duper secret 5th ending.

I loved the new bosses and mastering them in the Hall of gods was a delight. Again though, I've beaten all the fights on Ascended at least aside from Obobbles and Markoth. I've done the Path of Pain. I've delivered the flower to Elderbug. I've learned the lore about that one random Cowardly Husk in the Watcher's Tower and seen Mila die. A man can only do so much before breaking, and Pantheon of Hallownest was my breaking point.