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With the flak Microsoft gets (good on you if you get that dated reference) or rather 343i got since Halo 4, and the deserved backlash of the grossly mishandled MCC collection, people started to believe that the original Halo flavor they knew and loved was becoming stale, and 343i just was not capable of producing a worthy successor to the Bungie games, until Halo 5 came out. At that time fans and media said that Halo 5 was moving the franchise back in the right direction.

However, years later people have changed their minds and have mixed opinions on whether Halo 5 was the better Halo game that was closest to the originals, or if Halo 4 was actually the better game and that its period of scrutiny had passed.

This thread is to find out what Neogaf thinks. Do you believe that Halo 4 was the best Halo game since the originals? Or do you agree with the original consensus back in 2015 that Halo 5 was the game that put Halo back on track? Or maybe you just think both suck.

Halo 5 vs. Halo 4.

 

[Hobbygaming]

Halo 4 had the better story, Halo 5 had the better MP but a terrible SP

Neither were like the early Halo's

 

[Murder187]

Halo 4 for me had better more halo weapons I didn't like halo 5 weapons it was like I was playing cod I really hope they go back the master chief collection best mp part's 1-2-3-4 and reach still enjoying those tried to go back to h5 in it felt off mp wise

 

[Bathtub Fart]

Neither.

4 had a better narrative, but it was still a dumpster fire and was tonally out of place with the rest of the series. Bad changes to gameplay.

5 crushed anything cool from 4, made a worse story, lingered in shitty undercooked characters, but had WAY better level design than 4. I thought 5 was a more enjoyable gameplay experience. Still didn't feel true to Halo.

Infinite better be fucking good.

 

[imsosleepy]

Fuck halo 5 campain
Cortana bad guy
Not playing much as chief
Shit ending

 

[Codes 208]

Neither quite capture that bungie charm, though halo 4 atleast comes close. Hell, ill even say halo 4 felt more halo than reach in some ways.

halo 5 however really missed the mark in nearly every way. Honestly while the gunplay is better than 4’s, the over-complication of spartan abilities, neutering of map design to compensate the higher speed, lack of interesting maps, and fucking forge maps making up 90% of the modes i play really hurts even that for me.

both have shitty armor designs as well. Well halo 4 has a few cool designs like locus and deadeye but the rest is meh.

 

[SatansReverence]

Both are garbage.

 

[V4skunk]

Neither quite capture that bungie charm, though halo 4 atleast comes close. Hell, ill even say halo 4 felt more halo than reach in some ways.

halo 5 however really missed the mark in nearly every way. Honestly while the gunplay is better than 4’s, the over-complication of spartan abilities, neutering of map design to compensate the higher speed, lack of interesting maps, and fucking forge maps making up 90% of the modes i play really hurts even that for me.

both have shitty armor designs as well. Well halo 4 has a few cool designs like locus and deadeye but the rest is meh.

Halo Reach is the best Halo game by far.

 

[MDSLKTR]

I didn't even bother to finish H5, cool multiplayer though.

 

[Andodalf]

Halo 4 had the better story, Halo 5 had the better MP but a terrible SP

Neither were like the early Halo's

Agree with this 100%. I did really like Halo 5's updated movement, Evade and Clamber are great, and watching top tier players do insane things with them is still great. Not nearly as big a fan of sprint, but going back to games without clamber is painful. In general, Halo 5 is a very tight shooter, and one of the few High TTK shooters still around.

the over-complication of spartan abilities

What do you mean? The abilities in the game (Hover, Evade, Slide, Charge etc) are all super straightforward, and the fact that everyone always has all of them makes it far less complicated than before

 

[Potato Chip PRO]

I hate to say it but if 343i fucks up Halo again.... The IP will head out like Duke Nukem....

 

[SpartanN92]

Halo 4 was a gem. Halo 5 can kiss the deepest darkest part of my asshole.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Neither felt typical Halo. I expected the franchise to change with a new studio and wasn't too surprised when it did. Of the two, I'd say I enjoyed Halo 4 a lot more than 5.

343's Halo had a hard shift in art-style that still annoys fans off to this day. I loved the Metroid Prime series, and think the artists have talent, but it clashed with what we'd seen in previous Halo games and too much Metroid came through. I accepted that it was what it was, and again I appreciated a lot of the work that went into the art, but it didn't feel the same anymore as absolutely everything was changed. Halo 5 was just off-the-rails in terms of both story and art direction. While some things looked fantastic, other things were laughably bad, like Cortana's strange new look. Halo 5 was so different from Halo 3 that it felt like a completely different universe.

Halo 4 played fairly well, but the multiplayer lost a lot of what I liked in the old games, though I did still put a lot of hours into the game.

I didn't mind the new movement abilities in Halo 5. Setting up a controller with paddles the game is super fun to play and very fluid. It was the first Halo game where the character I was controlling felt even close what the books described Spartans as being able to do. Unfortunately the campaign is really not very good, it's the first Halo campaign I only played through once. I've even played through ODST a few times. I gave no shits about any of the characters or what happened to any of them. Warden fights were obnoxious and the enemies are just as spongy as in Halo 4. Forge is amazing, but the whole time I was playing with it, none of my friends were playing so in the end I was building forge maps for absolutely nobody which took the wind out of my sails pretty fast.

I have very little faith in 343's leadership, and I'm expecting the game to be even more removed from what they should be building. Hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[Codes 208]

Halo Reach is the best Halo game by far.

Halo reach has the best campaign but shit like bloom and armor lock exist to muddy up the multiplayer a bit.
I’d argue halo 3 is the best halo

 

[VAVA Mk2]

Halo 4 had a decent story but shit MP. Halo 5 had good MP but an awful, convoluted story that didn't feel connected to previous games or the expanded universe. And AIs taking over? Talk about lame, boring, and cliche sci fi. They set up so much with the Greg Bear Forerunner book trilogy and Halo 4 but basically threw it away with Halo 5. They have A LOT to fix if Infinite will bring the series back to glory.

 

[Chiggs]

Halo 4 and Halo 5 are like Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.

Which is to say they’re both utter shit.

 

[LordOfChaos]

I used to defend 4 because it was their first entry and a launching point into a new trilogy. But 5 went waaay too far down the fanfic feeling rabbit hole.

Neither really got the original tone of Halo imo. But 5 was the furthest removed, space opera vs popcorn flick.

 

[Pimpbaa]

The only thing magic in those games was Cortana's curvy body in Halo 4 (shame they had to make her ugly in 5).

 

[diffusionx]

Halo 4 actually plays differently from the older games, in many ways. But it’s good and I like it. Halo 5 is still in the backlog.

 

[Varteras]

For me neither game captured the magic of the Halo games made by Bungie. Though to be honest, having gone back and played Halo Reach on PC, I don't think I actually want to return to those days in their entirety. I really feel like Halo needs to evolve, no pun intended. I've played too many games since Halo's glory years to be able to go back and enjoy the old formula like I used to. I'm a big Halo fan but I want to see 343 make truly big changes. I want them to shock people. I want to see some balls. The same balls Santa Monica Studio had when it made such drastic changes to God of War and ended up producing the best entry in the franchise.

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

Halo 5 might have the worst legendary campaign in the series, not just because of the lazy levels and bad story, but because of the horrible gameplay. It basically amounts to grab a long range gun and get behind something. I played OSDT right after and I was like holy shit I can actually run and gun again. If 343 thinks their horrible story and levels are all they have to worry about Halo Infinite is gonna be another dumpster fire.

 

[Hobbygaming]

Agree with this 100%. I did really like Halo 5's updated movement, Evade and Clamber are great, and watching top tier players do insane things with them is still great. Not nearly as big a fan of sprint, but going back to games without clamber is painful. In general, Halo 5 is a very tight shooter, and one of the few High TTK shooters still around.




What do you mean? The abilities in the game (Hover, Evade, Slide, Charge etc) are all super straightforward, and the fact that everyone always has all of them makes it far less complicated than before

Clamber feels good and I do like the movement. I don't like the Promethean weapons nearly as much as the human weapons. They have to get the campaign right though 1st and foremost, I really want it to be good

 

[Graciaus]

343 ruined Halo and haven't done a single good thing it. Everything they touch is awful from TU Reach, H4, Mcc, and H5.

The campaigns are both bad and the multi are not Halo. I can see why people enjoy the multi but this isn't what I want.

 

[RPS37]

All is I know is halo 5 multiplayer was pretty dope and halo 5 campaign is basically trash and I have still yet to finish it.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

I don't think either 4 or 5 as a whole captures the essence of Halo, however they both have moments within them that do. As far as Infinite is concerned everything they've shown seems to embody what Halo is and supposed to be, I hope I'm right and it seems like they listened and worked out the struggle of how to carry things on properly.

 

[Deleted member 775630]

I actually loved both, I don't understand what people were complaining about. Halo 5 MP was the best MP game when it was released, and I actually liked their story and how they telled it. They tried something new, and people don't like change apparently, who would've thought.

 

[Wolfgang Jr]

Both are shit.

Fuck 343

 

[HelpYouFall]

Although I like Halo 5 mechanically more (none of that killstreak nonsense in MP), storywise H4 had The Didact, which was awesome.
H5 had Cortana on her period and made no sense whatsoever. That story was such a mess ...

 

[Pidull]

Halo 4 captured the feel of the original Halo much better. Start the game on a ship getting boarded by the Covenant, end up discovering that you're above a brand new manufactured world. Explore the world and fight the Covenant and a new threat. Honestly, I loved the visual style of Halo 4 as well. Upon finishing it I was satisfied, but saw a lot of room for improvement in terms of Promethean enemy design, as the Prometheans were awful to fight with compared to the Covenant. The multiplayer was entirely forgettable though.

Halo 5 was a complete mess in the single player. Having squad mates did not work, and the majority of the time you're playing as a random guy that they want you to think is going to take down Master Chief... except never for a split second do you think this poser could hold his own against Chief. And then when they finally do face off, it's a terrible hand-to-hand fight where he DOES hold his own against Chief, when the smart decision would've been to have him get his ass handed to him.

Halo 5 multiplayer was quite enjoyable, but it wasn't really Halo. I would've preferred playing more MCC but that game was broken for so damn long.

My issues with 343i Halo is that they largely shat on a lot of the lore I learned to love. I don't buy random Joe Schmoes as capable Spartans, because I know that their bodies would turn to mush from all the extreme motion of the armor. The original Spartans made sense because they're literally genetically mutated in order to withstand the insane amounts of stress their bodies will experience, stress that is beyond the physical capabilities of normal people. For them to start introducing actual Forerunners was also a mistake in my book, it's a terrible idea to fully pull the curtain back on the mystery. This is something Metroid has gotten right this whole time, by never bringing the Chozo back.

 

[Havoc2049]

Overall, Halo 4 was way better than Halo 5. The only area where Halo 5 was solid was the 4v4 on small arena maps, and there were only a few memorable maps in Halo 5, while I felt Halo 4 had tons of memorable maps.

Halo 4 Cortana was the best Cortana.

 

[stickkidsam]

I hated a lot about Halo 4 and Halo 5's story was bland as spit on a roll of toilet paper.

Honestly Halo 4 was a fun game with its own ideas but as a Halo game I just did not like it. Halo 5's story was ridiculously bland and failed to live up to the INCREDIBLE hype train it built up but the multiplayer managed to become something special after a couple years of updates. It still hasn't reached that great Halo feel though.

I'd like to see Halo Infinite be a blend of 5 and Reach.

 

[VertigoOA]

Halo 5 Rian Johnson’d the ip so...

“We want chief!”

MS releases the “master chief collection” to indicate Chief’s days are over.

out comes halo 5 with its wannabe Spartans, shit characters, forgettable story, short stages of narrow corridors and the same exact boring boss fight 5x over. Seriously...

And let’s destroy Chief and Cortana’s legacy while we’re at it...

343 fucking sucks.

Didn’t hate Halo 4 tho. Just didn’t love it. Who knows about Infinite...

 

[Discusguy]

I just reinstalled Halo 5 last month. Wanted to play the Spacestation level with MC. After that I uninstalled the game again.

Halo 4 is the better game.

 

[Bathtub Fart]

I just reinstalled Halo 5 last month. Wanted to play the Spacestation level with MC. After that I uninstalled the game again.

Halo 4 is the better game.

It's funny I reinstalled it to replay the campaign and the voice acting and writing was so cringey and insufferable I turned it off in 40 minutes. Too bad, because some of the level design was pretty neat.

 

[Come On Tars]

No Halo game has captured the campaign of CE. Not even 2 or 3 imo. I can't describe it. Maybe they just weren't open enough or had that sense of freedom.

 

[VertigoOA]

No Halo game has captured the campaign of CE. Not even 2 or 3 imo. I can't describe it. Maybe they just weren't open enough or had that sense of freedom.

There’s a huge contingent of fans that say 3 is the best but my most memorable campaign experiences are the original and I’m a bit fond of ODST also.

So dumb to even think about replacing chief let alone doing it. If I play a halo game I expect to be the chief... always. Ughh

I just started replaying 4... let’s see how it goes. Back then I didn’t even know Bungie was done... I bought a 360 again for it

 

[Come On Tars]

There’s a huge contingent of fans that say 3 is the best but my most memorable campaign experiences are the original and I’m a bit fond of ODST also.

So dumb to even think about replacing chief let alone doing it. If I play a halo game I expect to be the chief... always. Ughh

I just started replaying 4... let’s see how it goes. Back then I didn’t even know Bungie was done... I bought a 360 again for it

Yeah I forgot odst had a good vibe to it. Idk, when I was young and was imagining what Halo in the future would be like, I would imagine giant forests and valleys with drop ships of covenant peppering the map, knocking elites off cliffs. Didn't go that way.

 

[ethomaz]

Neither

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Halo 4 was closer, but the ending levels were horrendous. And generally speaking, the Prometheans are nowhere as interesting as the Covenant and far more tedious as a gameplay mechanic.

 

[diffusionx]

Yeah I forgot odst had a good vibe to it. Idk, when I was young and was imagining what Halo in the future would be like, I would imagine giant forests and valleys with drop ships of covenant peppering the map, knocking elites off cliffs. Didn't go that way.

I’m playing ODST now. It doesnt totally work as a game, but the atmosphere and storytelling is off the charts good. It really stands out today.

A Halo using modern open world design cues though... I don’t want it.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

Halo 4 and Halo 5 are like Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.

Which is to say they’re both utter shit.

Guess that makes Halo Infinite Prometheus.

 

[godhandiscen]

Halo 4, and that should be insulting towards Halo 5.

Fuck you 343, you ruined a good thing.

 

[Kupfer]

Halo Reach is the best Halo game by far.

How dare you!
Didn't you grow up with Halo: Combat Evolved?

 

[GymWolf]

Neither, they are both far inferior games even compared to halo3.

 

[GymWolf]

Guess that makes Halo Infinite Prometheus.

Well at least it's not covenant...

 

[JaffeLion]

Halo 4, and that should be insulting towards Halo 5.

Fuck you 343, you ruined a good thing.

lol "ruined".

 

[MayauMiao]

Halo 4 had a better Cortana...

 

[V4skunk]

How dare you!
Didn't you grow up with Halo: Combat Evolved?

Of course I did. It's my second favourite game in the series.
The only thing that dissatisfied me with Reach was not fighting a Scarab in the campaign.

 

[VertigoOA]

lol "ruined".

All that does is further proven the incompetence of modern day film and game critics.

The playerbase of Halo games cratered. Halo 5 ruined the IP. On MS’ own platform, in its strongest market, its highest and only charting Halo game is Halo 5 at 43, whilst being free to gamespass users and With less players than CoD: WW2.

 

[Vawn]

They both feel like they were made my an inferior studio that just suddenly found themselves in charge of another studio's property and were completely overwhelmed.

You know, like they were.