this is a real two steps forward one step back situation. let's start with the good.
the new spartan abilities are cool! this is a nice example of the mid-2010s "mobility shooter" trend, where you can now dash, slide, clamber, and hover for free. it's fun to do a sprinting melee or a dive bomb on enemies.
although readability is still an issue in this game, something even the game concedes by highlighting items for you, it's not as bad as halo 4. in fact, the environments are genuinely beautiful! some of the best images in the series are here. the level design is unique for the series, every room is very open and offers lots of different paths for flanking and finding weapon caches to give to yourself and your allies. you're always moving forward, and each room is different from the last. there are even a few cool setpieces with the guardians.
however, the quality level layouts are betrayed by the completely undemanding enemy ai, which was previously one of halo's most distinctive characteristics. very rarely was i actually forced to move positions or change strategies. half the time they were so distracted by my squad that they didn't even attack me at all. i tried turning up the difficulty but it didn't affect ai routines, just changed the damage numbers to make encounters take longer. these beautiful, cleverly designed levels just become scenery for a pretty mindless shooting gallery. which might be fine, if most of the guns didn't sound so weak, or of half of them weren't just slight variations on each other. even the vehicle sections are strangely scarce of enemy vehicles to shoot.
these eight main characters actually have a lot of dialogue, and yet somehow still only have half a personality between them. the dialogue is 90% dry exposition and 10% lame quips, all delivered in the tone of someone reading off a powerpoint slide. there are three non-combat missions where you just listen to people talk in a room, and there are audio logs strewn throughout the levels, and somehow none of it is memorable! even the arbiter doesn't get a single cool line.
the meridian arc of the story has a little bit of interesting mystery and tension with governer sloan, and completing optional objectives to protect the colony is a fun dash of roleplaying. but the rest of the story is bizarrely dramatically inert. most of the important events seem to happen offscreen. a third of the game is spent on sanghelios, which is presented as some kind of endless quagmire, but the situation is no more politically complex than arbiter vs covenant, and the covenant are already fragmented and leaderless before you get there, making the arbiter's victory feel like a foregone conclusion. he has no villain to strive against, no loyalties to manage, nothing resembling a dramatic scenario. and the spartans don't even really care about the conflict, they do five levels just to hitch a ride on a guardian.
in only three levels, chief's story repeats the same beats over and over. it's just a road to cortana with the warden eternal telling you to fuck off over and over. the big confrontation should theoretically be interesting, but everyone is already perfectly certain of their position and course of action from the beginning, so there's not much drama to explore. you know how exactly how that confrontation is going to go five hours before you get there. the game keeps bringing up the struggles of ai, but always chooses to cut away from the scene before anyone can have a real conversation about it.
the new spartan abilities are cool! this is a nice example of the mid-2010s "mobility shooter" trend, where you can now dash, slide, clamber, and hover for free. it's fun to do a sprinting melee or a dive bomb on enemies.
although readability is still an issue in this game, something even the game concedes by highlighting items for you, it's not as bad as halo 4. in fact, the environments are genuinely beautiful! some of the best images in the series are here. the level design is unique for the series, every room is very open and offers lots of different paths for flanking and finding weapon caches to give to yourself and your allies. you're always moving forward, and each room is different from the last. there are even a few cool setpieces with the guardians.
however, the quality level layouts are betrayed by the completely undemanding enemy ai, which was previously one of halo's most distinctive characteristics. very rarely was i actually forced to move positions or change strategies. half the time they were so distracted by my squad that they didn't even attack me at all. i tried turning up the difficulty but it didn't affect ai routines, just changed the damage numbers to make encounters take longer. these beautiful, cleverly designed levels just become scenery for a pretty mindless shooting gallery. which might be fine, if most of the guns didn't sound so weak, or of half of them weren't just slight variations on each other. even the vehicle sections are strangely scarce of enemy vehicles to shoot.
these eight main characters actually have a lot of dialogue, and yet somehow still only have half a personality between them. the dialogue is 90% dry exposition and 10% lame quips, all delivered in the tone of someone reading off a powerpoint slide. there are three non-combat missions where you just listen to people talk in a room, and there are audio logs strewn throughout the levels, and somehow none of it is memorable! even the arbiter doesn't get a single cool line.
the meridian arc of the story has a little bit of interesting mystery and tension with governer sloan, and completing optional objectives to protect the colony is a fun dash of roleplaying. but the rest of the story is bizarrely dramatically inert. most of the important events seem to happen offscreen. a third of the game is spent on sanghelios, which is presented as some kind of endless quagmire, but the situation is no more politically complex than arbiter vs covenant, and the covenant are already fragmented and leaderless before you get there, making the arbiter's victory feel like a foregone conclusion. he has no villain to strive against, no loyalties to manage, nothing resembling a dramatic scenario. and the spartans don't even really care about the conflict, they do five levels just to hitch a ride on a guardian.
in only three levels, chief's story repeats the same beats over and over. it's just a road to cortana with the warden eternal telling you to fuck off over and over. the big confrontation should theoretically be interesting, but everyone is already perfectly certain of their position and course of action from the beginning, so there's not much drama to explore. you know how exactly how that confrontation is going to go five hours before you get there. the game keeps bringing up the struggles of ai, but always chooses to cut away from the scene before anyone can have a real conversation about it.