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[butalala]

I've played a lot of Halo over the years. Recently I've played through the Master Chief Collection and most of Reach with a friend, who basically forced his Xbox and Halo 5 onto me while he went out of town for Christmas. Halo 4 is probably my least favorite in the series, so I was interested to see if 343 could do better with their second game.

I'm usually a few years behind on gaming (currently playing Borderlands for the first time) and don't feel the need to create a LTTP, but my feelings about Halo 5 were mixed and I wanted to hear some more opinions.

I thought that Halo 5 was a pretty good effort. I'll break it down below. I might include some story spoilers, so watch out if you care about that.

+ I liked being able to clamber up ledges with a second button press.

+ Prometheans were much improved compared to Halo 4. The Soldier class is fun to fight against and the buffed up knights were a good challenge.

+ Hunters are much more of a challenge than ever before.

- I had a hard time getting a control set up that I was really comfortable with. I wanted to have something as close to Halo 1 or Halo 3 as possible, but I ended up settling with something close to Call of Duty, which is ok, but made it feel less like Halo

- The story was terrible, and felt unfinished like Halo 2. The characters that fill out Locke and Master Chief's crew were barely there. It might have been better to focus one group.

- Playing as Master Chief shouldn't be a requirement for a Halo game, but I didn't like that Locke took so much of the playtime.

- I don't like 343's art direction. When did Elites get so tall?

- Tank controls were terrible.

- Fighting the Warden is no fun. Then you fight him 3 or 4 more times. This felt like something out of Spartan Ops.

- The focus of 343's Halo games seems to be on repetitive, small-scale encounters, with highly detailed graphics. I think this is a mistake. Halo 5's vehicle moments were in small, highly contained areas, and maybe it's my imagination, but it felt like the camera was so zoomed in that the vehicle took up a quarter of the screen.

The novelty of the first Halo to me was the unique melee/grenade/firearm combo & controls, as well as a focus on battling in large, open natural environments. Bungie's Halo games continued to improve on the environmental aspect, with large space battles, ground battles between multiple Scarabs and tanks on either sides, things that basically felt like being part of an RTS at times. I'd rather have more of that than highly detailed graphics.

I realize that I had a lot more negatives than positives, but I still enjoyed my time with Halo 5. What did you think?

 

[TheDarkKnight774]

I was really disappointed in the campaign maybe even more than Halo 4 due to the reperivite bosses, the incredibly bad story, and levels and encounters that felt really stale and dull. All the new characters are completely forgettable and where they went with Cortana I felt was a mistake. Especially for a device MS has decided to make their voice activated mascot. But that's a separate note

I'd love to see the playtests of the warden fight and see how 343 came to the conclusion that a) this is a fun fight and b) hey let's repeat this multiple times throughout the game!

 

[Mister Wolf]

If they ported to PC I would play it again. Overall I enjoyed it besides those series of boss battles with you know who.

 

[Theorry]

I liked it. Story could have been abit better but still was good. The gameplay was great tho. Loved it.



Hides behind rock.

 

[Diablohead]

The marketing hype of the chief vs locke made it feel like you were suppose to pick an outcome, and nothing of that nature ever happened in the game.

I think it would have been a lot better if the chief was on his own or just with one other spartan and then it was just locke and buck chasing him down, the 4 teams were only there for co-op really and held no value else where.

 

[jem0208]

Halo 5 has the best on foot campaign gameplay in the series and I'd argue some of the best on foot gameplay in any FPS.

The level design absolutely trumps previous efforts in the series. The focus on slightly smaller but far more dense playspaces made the gameplay much more varied and interesting. I'd also argue that despite having smaller levels the game had greater player agency and more options in how to approach and handle encounters. The movement abilities also allowed for more dynamic and high action gameplay than previous Halos which were far slower in comparison.

Vehicular gameplay wasn't great though and some of the large scale scenarios were lacking. The Kraken could have been far more interesting had they made it move and I really wish they'd taken the running down a Guardian mission a lot further. The Warden also got rather repetitive.

I'm mixed on the story, as a standalone and a sequel to Halo 4 it was bad. It disregarded almost everything set up in 4 and never had any real conclusion. As setup for Halo 6 I think it was actually pretty great and I can't wait to see what happens.


In conclusion I think it is both the best and worst campaign in the series.

 

[Akai__]

- Tank controls were terrible.

Agreed. I personally would prefer a toggle for the older tank controls.

- Fighting the Warden is no fun. Then you fight him 3 or 4 more times. This felt like something out of Spartan Ops.

Bullet Sponge enemies are never a good idea. If you also happen to play on the higher difficulty settings, you notice a huge difficulty spike in these on foot Warden battles. If I ever do an other playthrough, I will use the skip method again.

- The focus of 343's Halo games seems to be on repetitive, small-scale encounters, with highly detailed graphics. I think this is a mistake. Halo 5's vehicle moments were in small, highly contained areas, and maybe it's my imagination, but it felt like the camera was so zoomed in that the vehicle took up a quarter of the screen.

343i has the illusion of bigger = better, in my eyes, because that's what their vehicle sections are. With Halo 4, you had the Mammoth on rails, which is by the way the most boring (and most broken, too) mission in Halo 4 and in Halo 5 you have the Kraken fight, which is essentially just a giant building and you engage it the same way every time. It's nothing like the Scarab fights of Halo 3, where you have several ways of engaging it, thanks to the game giving you multiple vehicles and weapons for it.

343i needs to make better vehicle sections.

 

[Jack The Nipper]

The best Halo 5 campaign there is.

 

[SuperBanana]

A truly abysmal campaign and I even liked Halo 4's enough to solo it on legendary. I think it killed my love of the Halo series.

 

[Samurai G0SU]

Only levels i enjoyed

First touch in Genesis and All of Sanghelios.

RIP Hunt the Truth .. you could have been Sooooooooooo Goooood.

BTW if you haven't listened to the Hunt The Truth seasons, i recommend it.

 

[Stainless]

I just picked this up for $20 on the sale so I am interested to get in and play it. I was surprised that the file size is 97GB, I assume that's MP maps...insane

 

[m23]

Only levels i enjoyed

First touch in Genesis and All of Sanghelios.

RIP Hunt the Truth .. you could have been Sooooooooooo Goooood.

BTW if you haven't listened to the Hunt The Truth seasons, i recommend it.

Hunt the Truth was so good and yet nothing came of it in the game. What a disappointment.

The story was terrible in the game, it had nothing to do with what the marketing made it seem like. I hope they step it up for 6. I actually enjoyed the story in Halo 4 for the most part.

Gameplay wise, 5 was good. I had fun with it but I just wish we got more Chief and blue team time. Hands down, they had the more fun missions.

One improvement in 5 from 4 was the music, both the music itself and the mixing. Great work on that front. I can't wait to hear more of what Jinnouchi has in store. I liked the music in 4, but the mixing was terrible.

 

[Akai__]

I just picked this up for $20 on the sale so I am interested to get in and play it. I was surprised that the file size is 97GB, I assume that's MP maps...insane

Maps, Gamemodes, Weapons, Vehicle and Customization. Wished you could choose what to install.

Microsoft should definitely do something about game installs anyways. I'd start with letting us install only one language, instead of having to download audio files for every language possible. According to modders of Halo 5 PC, the audio files for other languages make up for 15GB and that's only MP.

 

[R3TRODYCE]

After playing the Halo 5 campaign one tends to wonder can the next Halo campaign get any worse but I feel 343i will respond with a "Yes" .

 

[krang]

Minus WE, it was good fun to play. Story needs fixing, though.

 

[E92 M3]

After playing the Halo 5 campaign one tends to wonder can the next Halo campaign get any worse but I feel 343i will respond with a "Yes" .

Lol

 

[LegalEagleMike]

Come up with more interesting Boss fights instead of just adding more of the same Boss and add another vehicle mission, preferably in a Scorpion and I would have been pretty happy.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

After playing the Halo 5 campaign one tends to wonder can the next Halo campaign get any worse but I feel 343i will respond with a "Yes" .

I really hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised. Halo 5's campaign was a pretty massive disappointment.

 

[jem0208]

Gameplay wise, 5 was good. I had fun with it but I just wish we got more Chief and blue team time. Hands down, they had the more fun missions.

Nah, Sanghelios was the best part of the game by far and that was Locke.

 

[Hypertrooper]

The story telling and pacing is awful. And fighting the Warden several times was a terrible idea, too.

But the rest? A much improved campaign. On rail section are still not at Bungie level, but even Bungie does not accomplish that these days. They did improve the on foot segments a lot. Art direction is better than Halo 4. Personally I can not wait to see what they do with Halo 6. Those talk segments had been great but should not have been their own level.

 

[Sordid]

'This is a continuation of Master Chief's story'

Campaign ended up with a horrible story and you only as Master Chief for 3 out of 15 missions. 343 added their own characters in and shock, horror! they save the Chief and Blue Team near the end of the game! Ugh. Never saw that one coming. Buck is great but Osiris are boring overall. The story would have been no worse if Osiris weren't there at all. Should just have been Blue Team zooming about the galaxy looking for Cortana.

Can't wait for the epic culmination of Master Chief's story in Halo 6. Chief stars in a 5 minute prologue mission and is then replaced by another new group of 343 characters. Chief is never mentioned again. Fin.

At least they nailed the gameplay for multiplayer!

Spoiler

Add data center selection for Halo 6 pls

 

[Jack The Nipper]

After playing the Halo 5 campaign one tends to wonder can the next Halo campaign get any worse but I feel 343i will respond with a "Yes" .

while not good it was an improvement from 4 which was borderline near some of the worst campaign parts I have played in a long while.

as always, first half was decent and some good parts while it turned into terrible.

 

[SilentRob]

Probablz my favorite campaign of all Halo games. The battlefields were huge and gave me so many opportunities of attack - I could try shooting my way through, charge with a vehicle, try to flank them by destroying some walls with me sprint move or look for machinery to destroy their shields for example. Story was shit, but that pretty much goes without saying for Halo games.

 

[Shil Pencer]

I loved the halo 5 campaign it was disappointing in the sense there was not enough master chief action but it left me wanting more instead of begging for it to just be over with which is how I have felt with a majority of campaigns recently (not including titanfall 2). It's like Halo 2 I remember being so mad about the campaign, but when I replayed it with MCC and had halo 3 ready to go right afterwards I felt like the story was perfect. Halo 6 is set up to be amazing in my opinion

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Halo 5 is the best playing Halo campaign with also the best level design, hands down. The map layout and verticality, combined with the movement options available to the player, is pretty fucking awesome and contributes significantly to the quality of the gameplay encounters.

I don't know what people think 343i is necessarily doing wrong, but as far as I'm concerned, Halo as a franchise has never been a more high quality overall gameplay experience as it has been since 343i took control. I also greatly respect 343i's approach to the Halo universe and its fiction. Their approach signals to me that they are fans who see the universe as having every bit as much potential as I personally do. They, to me, seem to understand the magnitude of the franchise, and treat it with the level of importance of something out of the marvel universe of movies, but with notably much darker/sadder undertones as compared to those movies.

Another way I would describe 343i's work on Halo 4, and finally with Halo 5, is that 343i finally gave me the Halo I always imagined I was playing, where I had to use my imagination to fill in the blanks as to how badass my character was truly being during actual gameplay, even though everything I was doing was pretty simplistic. It is no longer just the job of the cutscenes to make me feel like a badass. The gameplay contributes more now than it ever has.

 

[Diablohead]

.

At least they nailed the gameplay for multiplayer!

Spoiler

Add data center selection for Halo 6 pls

Oh yeah that thing which was promised after the beta test but they changed their minds weeks before launch for some stupid reason.

 

[Monocle]

I was pleasantly surprised by Halo 5's campaign, in that the excellent multitiered level design, stuffed full of weapons and alternate routes, makes the game insanely replayable.

I've always been a campaign guy first and foremost as far as Halo was concerned. Coming off Halo 4, I wasn't expecting much, and even felt prepared to drop the series. I'm really glad I liked Halo 5's campaign as much as I did. The controls, variety of settings, and great level design really hit the spot for me.

I hope 343 makes further improvements in Halo 6 to bring the series back in line with the feeling of Bungie's classic trilogy. They've already done a hell of a job correcting the mistakes they made in Halo 4.

As an aside, I was absolutely delighted that 343 got back in touch with Halo's sense of humor. The easter eggs and comical dialogue are pitch perfect. The new monitor Exuberant Witness is a joy.

 

[RichiRamjag]

Halo 5 has the best on foot campaign gameplay in the series and I'd argue some of the best on foot gameplay in any FPS.

The level design absolutely trumps previous efforts in the series. The focus on slightly smaller but far more dense playspaces made the gameplay much more varied and interesting. I'd also argue that despite having smaller levels the game had greater player agency and more options in how to approach and handle encounters. The movement abilities also allowed for more dynamic and high action gameplay than previous Halos which were far slower in comparison.

Vehicular gameplay wasn't great though and some of the large scale scenarios were lacking. The Kraken could have been far more interesting had they made it move and I really wish they'd taken the running down a Guardian mission a lot further. The Warden also got rather repetitive.

I'm mixed on the story, as a standalone and a sequel to Halo 4 it was bad. It disregarded almost everything set up in 4 and never had any real conclusion. As setup for Halo 6 I think it was actually pretty great and I can't wait to see what happens.


In conclusion I think it is both the best and worst campaign in the series.

I personally think the level design is terrible in comparison to past efforts.

 

[LiK]

The Warden boss fights were so damn repetitive. Was it so hard to create more than one boss? Also, I hated the cliffhanger ending. Wasn't earned at all. I was okay with the campaign when I originally beat it but the more I think about it, the more I hated it. There wer eliterally chapters where nothing really happened like when you were exploring that outpost.

 

[digitalrelic]

This campaign marked the end of my interest in the Halo series. It was really awful. Can't believe how low it's fallen after the great campaigns of Halo 3 and Halo Reach.

 

[Monocle]

I personally think the level design is terrible in comparison to past efforts.

Why? I think it's a substantial leap forward that really capitalizes on the potential of the new traversal mechanics.

 

[WadiumArcadium]

The story and new characters were forgettable but I enjoyed the gameplay. The Swords of Sanghelios levels were the highlight.

 

[Pizza]

Honestly I was very okay with the direction 343 was taking halo with 4. The extended universe was pretty sweet and I was happy to see them just strongarm that stuff into the games. I figured 5 would be pretty damn great considering how 4 laid some nice foundation and EVERYTHING leading up to halo 5 was incredible. 4 had alright gameplay, but I was into the story.

Gameplay wise halo 5 is pretty good. I felt like running around on foot was a fully realized version of what reach and 4 were trying to do (for better or worse) but almost everything else was not all that great.

I was super okay with having a whole new cast of playable characters in a republic commando halo game. Somewhere along the line most those mechanics and most the fucking game got gutted to hell and back, with areas clearly intended to be hubs serving as filler "missions" instead. They made you fight the stupid warden so many fucking times but they wouldn't make m'dama have a decent ending? Like for as big a deal as they made about him he goes out like he's literally no one.

Spartan ops was the worst part of 4 by far, and idk why that guy was put in charge of directing a full game. 5 was not about chief deserting and searching for Cortana as Locke tried to put him down. Like at all. They had some lame ass fist fight (again, why couldn't master chief be a boss?)

Also why on earth would you design a game where enemies in the background move at 30fps? It's horrid and jarring and if y'all can't optimize your game then fucking turn down the gooey gundam graphics a bit

If you distill 5's story into bullet points it's sweet as fuck, but the excecution was so poor. And I LIKED halo 2, it was weird and could've used more polish but it was a fun fucking game.

Someone needs to tell 343 that coloring everything orange and blue doesn't count as art direction

Edit: the bait and switch is what killed me. I don't remember any other halo game pulling that quite so hard, the e3 demo was all pretend and I am completely fine with having sold my xbox

 

[schwabdizzle]

Halo 5 IMO had one of the worst Campaigns, yet probably the best MP (arguably)

 

[jelly]

Vehicle sections suck so much, two games in a row, they just don't get it. Kraken was awful, wow so big, yeah a big curtain of scenery more like.

 

[RoboticWater]

I don't know what people think 343i is necessarily doing wrong

It's pretty well itemized in the OP.

But to put it in a word, 343's Halo lacks character. I'm not just talking about how every character in 4-5 (other than Chief and Cortana in 4) are bland piles of meat. Although, I can't help but think that 343's campaigns might actually hold my attention if they had performances on par with Sgt. Johnson, the Prophets, or hell, 343 Guilty Spark. None of the voice actors in 343's games seem like they want to be there. They're boring, monotonous, and completely incapable of inspiring enthusiasm in the audience.

But narrative character isn't the only thing I'm talking about. The game design lacks character. Yeah, the movement mechanics are pretty nifty, but what about the encounter design? Every level feels like just another bowl full of enemies. Will 343 ever give us another level with the tone and pacing of Halo's introduction to the Flood? Will they ever give us vehicle missions that makes us feel like a badass? Will we ever get to fight Scarabs from a mongoose?

343 has technical competence, but apparently, they can't do anything cool with it.

 

[Nheco]

Nah, it totally sucks. It worst than Halo 4... the Prometheans suck, but at least Halo 4 feels like a Halo. Halo 5 feels like a Squad Based futuristic call of duty.

It's funny because 343 is changing Halo to keep people engaged to the franchise, but the changes they did are the main reason the franchise isn't big as before.

At least the multiplayer is fun.

 

[SaganIsGOAT]

Story aside, I absolutely LOVED the on foot gameplay the more and more I played. The levels were actually designed around the new mobility options like grappling (which is the best implementation I have ever experienced). Had a lot of fun with all the non vehicle levels.

 

[jem0208]

I personally think the level design is terrible in comparison to past efforts.

Why?

 

[op_ivy]

Easily some of the best levels, level design, and combat spaces in the series. Ok story that didnt really go anywhere. Boring plot based levels. Shitty multiple warden fights. Crap ai teammate system. Like every halo game ever, it did things right and fucked up others.

 

[Nheco]

Why?

Halo is almost linear nowadays, linearity =/= Halo.

 

[jem0208]

Halo is almost linear nowadays, linearity =/= Halo.

Besides a couple of levels in CE Halo has always been linear.

 

[singhr1]

Only levels i enjoyed

First touch in Genesis and All of Sanghelios.

RIP Hunt the Truth .. you could have been Sooooooooooo Goooood.

BTW if you haven't listened to the Hunt The Truth seasons, i recommend it.

Why RIP HTT? It was successful and it worked because of the medium.

Also, it was made after Halo 5's story was finalized. It worked to further build out the universe.

If it had any significant impact on the game's story it would only lead to even more complaints of requiring the player to have read/listened to/watched something to fully understand the game (on top of what was already required).

 

[Nheco]

Besides a couple of levels in CE Halo has always been linear.

I can't even start to describe how much wrong you are.

 

[jem0208]

I can't even start to describe how much wrong you are.

Please do.

 

[singhr1]

I can't even start to describe how much wrong you are.

Please enlighten us.

Also "level design" is a very broad topic. 343 excelled at building "large" play-spaces to make interesting on-foot combat that worked well with the Spartan abilities. Verticality, multiple routes, variety of targets, etc. Combat encounter space -> Combat encounter space is linear in nearly every FPS.

Halo 3 was widely ridiculed at the time to be the most "linear" of the 3 original trilogy games (on-foot) IIRC.

 

[op_ivy]

I can't even start to describe how much wrong you are.

Says the guy call8mg halo 5 a "squad based cod". Please

 

[Nheco]

Guys, linear = Uncharted, Gears of War, Call of Duty.

Halo = huge levels that you can do different approaches to drive trough end or use a vehicle and wander a lot.

Sorry, but if you guys think that besides Halo 1, everything else is linear, the only thing I can say is that you don't have played much Halo. Every Halo from 1 to Reach had Huge maps with multiple paths.

It's so pervasive in the series, that I'm baffled that someone is asking me to explain this.

 

[krang]

It's still point to point objective, in all but a few cases.

The large maps give the illusion of non-linearity.

 

[void666]

I didn't like the campaing in halo 4. But after halo 5 i think halo 4 is not that bad.