over 200 grueling hours of sword swingin’, bullet pumpin’, fist fightin’ combat and arcade games later, i platinumed Final Fantasy VII REBIRTH, and I have lots to say, so let’s talk about it.

ima say right off the bat that I LOVED THE SHIT outta this game.

By far the best thing about this game for me is the combat system. It felt so good and is such an improvement over Remake. I don’t ever wanna abandon the air-combo GOD Cloud Strife. Not just him though, every character felt so good to play. There wasn’t a single one of them that I felt was underwhelming in any way. I wanted to play as them all and had fun with all of them, gets me excited to see what we do with the last 2 characters remaining.

Combat overall just felt so much quicker and efficient, and the addition of the synergy skills & abilities is a highlight. I’ll admit I didn’t really start implementing the skills into my play style till later in Hard Mode, but they’re a really good way of building ATB, and of course, the synergy abilities, beyond just being very flashy, provide several buffs to your party which can help for whatever you decide your next play is gonna be. And their animations are incredible and make the FF7 party feel more like a team than ever before. The only thing I’d wish was a thing is more than just 3 preset parties. The story does plenty of required mixing which I appreciate but I think 3 presets is way too low for 7 playable characters, though you spend most of the game with 5-6 and it isn’t too much of a knock at the game.

In regards to story, this game did exactly what I was expecting off the heels of Remake, in that a majority of it would be a very faithful recreation of the events of Disc 1 up until the very end. Granted, this game did a tad more than Remake by sprinkling in those FF8 Laguna -esque sections with Zack (albeit not as cool as that game) but I’m not bothered by that cuz Zack obviously has a role to play in the overarching plot, and although he really didn’t do much here, his scenes helped spice up the intrigue and understanding of whatever tf is happening in this story. This game maintains the extremely strong character writing of the last game but does it even better here. These characters are the best they’ve ever been, and I was left satisfied with the way they recreated every area from Disc 1 and their stories.

Now there’s also the Lodbrock shit which…I actually didn’t mind either. At first I was hella confused and kinda let down that they were bringing mobile game shit into it like we were in Kingdom Hearts but by the end didn’t mind it so much.

One thing though is that at various moments this game refuses to let certain moments and scenes sit. The most glaring examples of this being during the Barret and Dyne encounter. We’re left with such an emotionally impactful cutscene that transitions over to Palmer’s silly ass, then we’re back to Barret and the emotions are back but then DIO pulls up in the Buggy and starts flexing everywhere and wrestles with Rude (which is pretty funny).

This plays into one of my issues with this game that I felt carried over from Remake (although not as bad), which is the pacing of chapters. Certain chapters just felt too dragged out imo like chapter 7, 8, 11, and 13. I get that they want to give us an opportunity to see what’s up with the whole party even when they’re split up but sometimes it would get to a point where I just wanted to get it over with, again I don’t see this as too big a knock at the game cuz ultimately I was having fun with the combat, except for Chapter 11 cuz the Cait Sith section I genuinely don’t fw. This game still does a much better job of it than Remake, which isn’t surprising cuz that game was forced to make an entire game out of the first few hours of FF7. When it comes to the ending of this game, I definitely had to come around to it. One thing that’s for certain though is that they robbed one of the most essential moments from the original game of any emotional weight I could have felt from it. It’s obviously to add to the mystery of what Aerith’s role actually is in this narrative but I think you just need to let certain moments sit. Again, while that’s still an issue I think I’m on board overall with what they’re trying to build up. Though it all depends on the execution of this next part.

If the next game ties the knot on these plot threads in a way I’m not satisfied with, it’ll serve as a huge detriment for my feelings on the endings of Remake and Rebirth, but for now, I’m on board.

the music in this game is PHENOMENAL btw, that’s all I gotta say, simply amazing, go listen to it NOW.

The true meat of my time playing this game however, was on the optional content. Side quests, Global check-listing, MINI-GAMES, and Chadley’s simulator (pain..)

First the mini-games. There are WAY TOO MANY DAWG. To give ‘em credit, I had fun with quite a number of them. But DAMN did it feel like they just needed to make a mini-game out of everything. Most of these were optional but some were put into story segments like in Costa Del Sol or the Gold Saucer/Corel Prison.

My favorites to play were Queen’s Blood (legendary) and Chocobo Racing (peak). The rest were either cool, inoffensive, or flat out SUCKED. Legitimately the only mini-game I want in the next one is snowboarding lmao. I feel they could make that pretty fun.

Honestly what made these worse for me was purely cause of the trophy hunting aspect I’ll admit. You need to play every single one of these mini-games to absolute perfection in order to satisfy Johnny and his washed up hotel. The collectibles are dope though. The next major piece of side content is world intel, where Chadley gives you a list of grocery items he needs and expects you to return with all of them accounted for. These were okay. I did them all as they came to me and a lot of them were mindless, some fun because of more combat. The only ones that were really worth anything were the final fiend encounters and the protorelic quests which were actually really awesome the way they tied into GILGAMESH, a character I WAS NOT expecting to be here as he was famously absent from the OG.

Apart from that though, these missions were okay, but by the time I hit Cosmo Canyon I DID get a little burnt out from them. Still did them though cuz I had a desire to complete everything. I understand incentivizing exploration but I feel this wasn’t the ideal method? It was fine for this game but I honestly do not want to see it come back in the next one. I want something fresh for the optional content of the next game, and with the new and exciting methods of mobility coming our way, I’m HOPING we see something good here.

Next would be the side quests, of which I actually really enjoyed overall. Their stories are generally a lot more interesting than they ever were in Remake and a lot of them contain some very amazing moments of character bonding between the party. If you already loved our cast, you’ll love them even more here. Barret getting emotional over eventually having to let Marlene go when she’s old enough is very heartwarming and hilarious all at once and reiterates my love for these characters. The side quests were much better this time around and I hope they continue to get better in the future.

And just like the last installment, Chadley has a buttload of combat challenges he wants us to complete. Whether it be to unlock new summons or fight waves of enemies we scanned throughout the world. Most of these are fine and good fun. It’s not until you unlock the brutal/legendary challenges where things get serious and annoying.

These challenges all depend on your skill and the correct materia set up. The one great thing about these though is that after completing the legendary challenges you unlock challenges in which you get to play alongside Zack and Sephiroth, who both have very cool move sets that are fun to play around with, only Zack’s challenge is actually a pain in the ass and soon you’ll find yourself wanting to chuck your controller across the entire globe.

I’ll give these challenges credit for being better than the Gold Saucer’s colosseum challenges. This is because the colosseum only provides the same exact enemies in different formations which easily gets boring to the point where you question if there was any effort put into these combat challenges whatsoever.

Overall though, again, a majority of these are optional, so you don’t HAVE to do them, but the game heavily encourages that you do all of this, especially when Chadley is in your ear constantly shouting at you to go explore the world. This little cyborg has the most dialogue in the entire game compared to your entire party combined it feels like. He can be annoying, and Square seems to think so as well considering they give you an option to mute his voice…very funny.

If there’s one piece of optional content I absolutely ROCKED with though, it has to be Gilgamesh Island. An area unlocked only after completing all the protorelic quests, you come to this island where you must fight pairs of summons you’ve already fought before in exhilarating encounters that feel the most fun the entire game has to offer. After which, you get to fight Gilgamesh in an epic boss battle that contains the sickest remix of Battle On The Big Bridge from Final Fantasy 5 I’ve ever heard.

On a related-note, one small thing I really appreciate about this game is the amount of references to past Final Fantasy games that are present, which makes it feel like a love-letter in a sense, not to the extent of say, Final Fantasy 9, but still very nice nods nonetheless.

For instance, a poster in Tifa’s room of Zell from Final Fantasy 8 doing his limit break, or Yuffie referring to her squad as the “YRP” referencing the trio from Final Fantasy 10-2, as well as Mog’s theme from FF6 being present around the moogle emporiums. And hell, the fact Gilgamesh is even present in this game feels like such a Final Fantasy staple, and before he leaves your world he warns a group known as the “Warriors of Light” known for being the party of early FF games like 1, 3, and 5. These are small nods but appreciated as someone who’s become a fan of this series as a whole over the past couple of years.

So to gather up my thoughts overall, I’d say my experience with the main game was a much smoother experience than my trophy hunting experience. This game satisfied the expectations I had coming into it, and every day I was itching to get back into it for more, even through the frustration. While it’s an amazing video game in my eyes, there are still apparent issues that I hope are addressed in part 3 to provide an even better experience. I’m very hopeful, as part 3 has to cover what are honestly the coolest events in the entirety of FF7.

I hope Square learns the correct lessons from this game to implement into the final part, and also towards the possible Final Fantasy 9 Remake, whenever that is officially confirmed and in my fingertips (hopefully…please…)

MINOR SPOILERS

I was told over and over again that Cyberpunk didn't have anything to say, but after finally playing the game I have to respectfully disagree with that take.

Cyberpunk is one of the most politically heavy-handed and thematically cohesive games I've ever played! Night City depicts the logical endpoint of hypercapitalism, a world where businesses and corporations have successfully subsumed every aspect of American culture, creating a country where the bottom line supersedes any consideration for human life.

This game is CONSTANTLY touching on hot button issues like universal healthcare, police brutality, worker's rights, the dehumanization of sex workers, immigrant labor, political corruption, gun violence, poverty, and social inequality - constantly exploring how these issues would look if they were to go unfixed 50 years in the future.

Could you imagine a world where corporations are legally allowed to discriminate towards employees and even force them to undergo cosmetic surgery? Or where snuff films are a popular form of entertainment for a population that's become emotionally numb to constant gun violence? Maybe a world where a privatized police force drops any facade of protecting the peace and opts to brutalize anyone who gets in their way? Where sex workers frequently wipe their memories to avoid the psychological fallout of dealing with abusive clients?

This isn't the 'apolitical politics' of Far Cry where the game dunks its head in the sand and pretends its narrative has no ties to the real world.

This isn't the milquetoast commentary of Bioshock where the game vaguely gestures towards complex ideas while saying nothing of value.

And this sure as hell isn't the misanthropic satire of GTA, aimlessly shitting on anything and everything without a hint of humanity.

Instead, Cyberpunk is making pointed criticism towards Capitalists, abusive power structures, and the hollow promise of the American dream while still managing to show empathy to those suffering from this broken system.

This game sounds like it’s all doom and gloom, but it still finds time to tell deeply personal and intimate stories about the people of this world. Nearly every quest is about trying to find peace and comfort in the apocalypse, trying your hardest to do right by others when the system has beat any sense of happiness and love out of them.

One mission has you checking on a neighbor who has shut himself off from the world and refuses to talk to friends or family after witnessing the widespread corruption of the NCPD

Another mission has you comforting a death row inmate who wants nothing more than redemption and forgiveness for his actions and struggles to give back to a world that only wants him dead

Sometimes you're snuggling up to your best friend on a couch, babysitting a single mom's kids as she cooks dinner, helping an old friend come to terms with their fading legacy, convincing a soon-to-be father to stop his risky money making schemes or - my personal favorite - leaving messages on a friend's voicemail as you come to terms with their passing.

It's rare to see a game depicting such a dark and cynical world while maintaining a deeply emotional core. And it does it all with a concise script that drip feeds character development, world building, and plot without relying on fat exposition dumps - the writing in cyberpunk is snappy and lean, fitting an expansive rpg adventure in a 30 hour runtime without feeling rushed or underwritten. There’s a large cast of characters that get little screentime but immediately leave a lasting impression through their back stories, personal beliefs, and excellent performances. To top it all off, Night City is a beautifully realized world with an incredible attention to detail - everything you see has a history that steadily unfolds the more you slow down and pay attention to the environmental design, codex entries, and optional dialogue. Where are all the animals in the city? Why are buildings on the edge of town obscenely tall? What the hell is a braindance? Slowly piecing together answers to these questions was extremely satisfying and gave me the same feelings I had when discovering the RPG worlds from games like Mass Effect, SMT IV, and Fallout.

While I have a 1,000 great things to say about the narrative, the gameplay systems are consistently mid

Combat is a simple run 'n gun shooting gallery that's largely devoid of strategy - just walk into a room full of baddies and click their heads til they die. You can approach levels from multiple directions and use stealth/hacking abilities to spice things up, but each of the routes are functionally samey (and typically converge into 1 path anyways), stealth is incredibly slow, and hacking is nowhere as fun or efficient as just shooting people.

That being said, even though the combat is shallow and lacks the systemic depth of something like Deus ex or Prey, its fast pace and solid kinesthetics make it enjoyable in a ‘dumb fun’ kind of way. Personally, I would take cyberpunk's mindless run n gun nonsense over the flacid gunplay or janky melee of similar rpgs like Fallout or Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. It also helps that combat is rather infrequent! If you stick to the questlines and ignore the dozens of random filler mercenary gigs (jesus there’s SOOO much filler), you'll find that combat is rarely the focal point. Most quests actively discourage conflict or have zero combat altogether, opting to focus on the narrative and world building instead.

There are other flaws like the game's insistence on hand-holdy setpieces that disregard player input, or a dull skill tree centered on tiny statistical buffs (+2% dps! Wow!), or the game’s need to signpost everything with gaudy quest markers - but they're easily forgivable compared to the game's AWFUL LOOT SYSTEM. This system is a poor man’s Diablo, centered on number bloat and raw vertical progression rather than meaningful trade offs or interesting synergies.

You find level 3 booty shorts only to replace them with level 4 booty shorts and then level 5 booty shorts - so on and so forth.

You find a level 6 handgun and feed it crafting materials until it's level 7, then 8, then 9, all the way up to the cap of 50.

Finding loot doesn’t open up new abilities or strategies or playstyles, you’re just inflating defense and attack stats in a linear fashion, making combat at level 50 nearly identical to combat at level 1. To make things worse, you’re absolutely DROWNING in loot with no way to filter rarity or instantly sell all.

This system is bad and does nothing but introduce tedious menuing and arbitrary difficulty spikes. Dying to an enemy who's 10 levels higher than me and kills me in 2 hits isn't fun or interesting or give me anything to learn from. Opening my inventory to sift through 100 similar pistols is boring, boring, boring. This might seem pretty tame to some people, especially since most AAA games have similar systems, but I think a system that actively detracts from a game without adding anything of value shouldn’t exist in the first place. This is cdprojektRED's 4th rpg and they STILL struggle to provide interesting itemization despite decades of crpgs providing examples of how to do it right.

I have problems with Cyberpunk and I wouldn’t blame anyone for hating the game (especially if you got scammed with the ps4/xbox one versions), but it has some of the best writing and world design I’ve ever seen in a videogame and stands with Yakuza, Disco Elysium, and Mother 3 as one of the few narrative games that left an emotional impact on me. Hopefully the game gets more attention once it’s fully patched cause I would hate for it to get forgotten.

Despite being one of the most popular and influential games of all time, somehow, Doom 2 is still severely underrated.

Someone who agrees is Danbo, fellow Doom lover and developer of the shmup Blue Revolver. In his old article (https://blog.danbo.vg/post/50094276897/the-most-misunderstood-game-of-all-time) he explains:

"While Doom was no doubt the product of a bunch of nerds doing what they love, the game offers a more intelligent gameplay palette than just about any other pure FPS in the world...Doom perfection is achieved where the visceral meets the intelligent."

Everyone knows the obvious: the timeless joy of the Super Shotgun, the surreal demonic aesthetic, the beloved metal MIDIs that rip off Metallica and Slayer, and so on. But there's an iceberg of elements below the surface that oft go overlooked by those uninitiated in deeper Dooming ways. To bring up just a few examples:

The famous BFG is a brilliant, quirky weapon that operates like some bizarre hybrid of a delayed-fire rocket launcher and shotgun. The ball does a good chunk of damage, but the real firepower is in the spread of 40 invisible tracers that shoot out from you a bit after the ball explodes, in the direction you initially fired. You can fire at packs of enemies to spread out the damage for crowd control, or get right up next to something to put all the tracers on it for massive destruction (both incredibly useful and incredibly dangerous against Cyberdemons). You can fire the BFG at long range, do other things (run around, switch weapons), then move into position for the tracers as the ball makes impact. You can hide behind cover, shoot the ball into a wall, then quickly peek outside cover to forgo the ball damage in favor of safety. You can even shoot, realize that you're in a bad position, and retreat, wasting ammo but possibly saving your life.

Switching weapons is both critical to success and surprisingly slow, especially if you compare with Doom's modern entries. But this adds commitment, that deep shard of the action game's soul, in a way that ties into the ever-present ammo system. Say you pump two Super Shotgun blasts into a Revenant, and are confident that it's a hair away from death. You can switch to the Chaingun to fire a quick burst, which is highly ammo-efficient, but takes time and leaves you vulnerable. You can stick with the Super Shotgun, which trades ammo for safety and speed. You can even use the Rocket Launcher to put heavy damage on another foe while killing the first with splash damage, but this opens the door for the classic-yet-catastrophic rocket to your own face. id could have easily made the weapon switch speed near-instant, but whether by intention or happenstance, they didn't, and the game is better for it.

I could go on and on about all the nuances that add to the game, but there are two critical elements that set Doom apart from every other FPS. The first is its emphasis on space control. Take the humble Pinky, for instance: low health and it's bites are easily dodged, so not much threat, right? Well, put Doomguy in a room with fifty of them (Doom 2 MAP08: Tricks and Traps for instance) and the assessment rapidly changes. If you're not careful, you'll be surrounded on all sides, and while killing a few may be easy, others will quickly rush into the gaps to further constrict you. Controlling territory with movement and smart (or copious) use of ammo is critical to survival. Now imagine how much the situation would evolve with just a single Archvile added to the mix!

The other aspect, almost completely unique to Doom as far as I know, is monster infighting and its importance. Baiting one monster type to attack another will cause it to switch aggro and retaliate. Purposefully leaving some monsters alive to tear each other apart can save you tons of ammo, but also presents a huge risk, as the resulting fight is more chaotic and dangerous.

A great example is the slime pit in Alien Vendetta's MAP14: Overwhelming Odds. The whole pit is filled with Pinkies, and the only way to exit the pit is a lift opposite the switch you need to hit. But hitting the switch releases two Cyberdemons, who can easily kill you if you get trapped, but can also easily dispatch the Pinkies and save you lots of ammo. How many Pinkies do you kill to get to the lift safely, vs. how many do you leave alive for the Cyberdemons? A little later, you need to return to the pit to activate another switch, which releases a massive cloud of Cacodemons. Do you kill the Cyberdemons before hitting the switch, while the field is nice and clear, but go it alone against the Cacos? Or do you leave the Cyberdemons to thin out the horde, then risk fighting them with random Cacos floating around? Or maybe you only kill one Cyberdemon to split the difference? I've tried all of these strategies, and each has its own strengths, weaknesses, and gameplay flow.

It's truly astonishing to me how much id managed to get right so early on. The fundamentals here are rock-solid, and the blend of fast paced action, using enemies against each other, heavy resource management, and a thick coating of atmosphere for good measure prefigures Resident Evil 4 by a decade. All the dynamic layers of decision-making I yearn for in action games are here, weaving into each other in wonderful interplay. Split-second decisions and execution are, as always, a matter of life and death, but also affect your health and ammo, which leaks into the next encounters. Making too hasty of a retreat at the wrong time can cost you precious territory and create openings for monsters to stake out unfavorable positions, the consequences of which might not be felt until later in the fight. The overall route you devise for tackling a map can vastly change how the onslaught plays out, both in terms of what gear you have access to and what mix of monsters are active.

It should be an obvious conclusion by now that the map has a massive impact on gameplay, especially if you are pistol starting. (sidenote: you should absolutely pistol start levels, lower the difficulty if you have to) Placement of monsters, weapons, resources, and geometry will make or break the experience. and the true mapping virtuoso has a commanding sense of how to arrange these elements to create gripping scenarios that challenge, terrify, surprise, and delight.

Danbo again:

"It’s not artificial intelligence you fight when you’re locked in a room full of Barons of Hell and Revenants and voicelessly asked to pick a side in the resulting infighting (It’ll take more ammo to finish off the barons, but revenants are more likely to give you a nasty right hook or slap you with a rocket in the process) - it’s human intelligence."

Doom 1 and 2's base maps, given the time and constraints id was working under, are an admirable work and good bit of fun, and have undoubtedly served as a crucial creative jumping-off point for the community. But they weren't able to reveal the true brilliance of the game's design: it would be the Casali brothers' Plutonia Experiment, distributed commercially in Final Doom by id a couple years after Doom 2, that began to show off how careful arrangement could bring out the best (and most deadly) in each monster.

As Doomworld's Not Jabba puts it, in their epic history Roots of Doom Mapping (https://www.doomworld.com/25years/the-roots-of-doom-mapping/):

"The Casali brothers laid so much groundwork that all combat-oriented mapping has been a series of footnotes to Plutonia."

The Doom 2 enemies in particular are some of the best ever made, and in Plutonia we can see that each contribute something unique. Hell Knights are balanced bruisers who eat space, health, and ammo in equal measure. Revenants are fragile, but their fast movespeed and homing missiles demand nimble footwork. Chaingunners fall over to stiff breezes, but call forth lead torrents within their sightlines. Mancubi and Arachnotrons lay down blankets of fire, but can be easily dodged close up and are especially prone to starting infights. Pain Elementals are harmless if you stop their Lost Souls from spawning, but sponge up piles of ammo if you let them roam free for too long. Archviles exert their tyrannical rule through long range, delayed-hitscan fire attacks, and they brutally punish inaction by resurrecting nearby fallen foes.

Since the release of Final Doom, Doom's almost 30-year-old community has been steadily building on this foundation, its continued vitality attributable to a complex mix of historical circumstance, id's openness to fan modifications (a stance I am immensely greatful for, and has been highly influential in PC gaming at large), and love of Doom. I confess that I have only begun to dip my toes into the vast world of custom maps, but the tremendous fun I've had so far, as well as the glowing reception for projects like Scythe 2, Valiant, Ancient Aliens, and Sunlust, has me eager to dive deeper. This is a community that most games would kill for, and the fact that it's gone largely overlooked, even by many fellow lovers of game mechanics, can only be described as utterly criminal.

An all-around great resource for learning more is MtPain27's Dean of Doom Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/MtPain27), where he reviews both new and old WADs level-by-level. His love of Doom is infectious, and he gives a great sense for the age, breadth, and brilliance of the mapping scene. Skilled players like Decino (https://www.youtube.com/c/decino) can also help show off the deeper aspects of gameplay, as well as engine quirks to add to your knowledge repertoire.

There are certainly some problems with the game (random damage and berserk with the chainsaw come to mind) but these are negligible when juxtaposed with the whole. I am utterly awed and humbled by what has been created here, and I don't see anything comparable emerging again. This is the type of game you could spend your whole life exploring and mastering.

Simply put: One of the greatest games of all time.

(Demo abandoned)

What the fuck are we doing? How the hell did Dark Souls 3 become the template for action games?

"Oh, it's the potential for good levels!" But what would good level design even look like in this context? Dark Souls 1 has a simple combat system that doesn't rely on large open spaces without obstacles. This way the player can be trusted to defend themselves in most terrain, which in turn enables designs like Blighttown, Sen's Fortress, New Londo Ruins, etc. where enemies can meaningfully interact with the level geometry. One can argue how consistently applied or successful this was in practice, but there is a solid design goal there that's still visible even up to Elden Ring (as scattershot as that game is).

As you make combat systems and enemy AI more complex though, generally you'll have to start making the simplifying assumptions of plenty of open space and no blocking terrain, which in turn restricts your level design capabilities. This is fine if you build the game accordingly, i.e. most of the classic linear action games. But Dark Souls 3 likes do not actually seem to be aware of this and so have dragged along huge amounts of bloat sections (Stellar Blade: swimming, keypads, climbing) so they can continue to pretend that the spaces between fights have any relation to the actual mechanics.

Similarly constructed arguments can also be made for the following Souls systems, which I will leave as an exercise to the reader: items, camera, pacing, leveling.

So I guess the whole point of these games is to grit your teeth so that you can experience the combat system? But is the combat really all that interesting? The camera limits how many aggressive enemies you can reasonably handle at once, and not being able to hitstun enemies with normal attacks pushes you into hit and run defensive play, which in turn pushes you to abuse the simplistic, timing-based parrying and iframe systems that all these games are cursed with. Why bother when you can just play Nioh 2, which commits all the soulslike sins above but at least has actually interesting resource management, accessible hitstun, deep weapon movesets, and so on. Why play any of these games at all when you can play Monster Hunter where the defensive, commitment driven style that soulslikes are known for is a hundred times better executed?

This whole subgenre is a complete dead-end design wise and doesn't look to be getting better anytime soon. What a mess.

(Replayed on MCC on PC with gamepad, Legendary, skipped The Library)

Honestly a lot better than I remember. I think the common praise and complaints about this game are mostly correct in kind if not always magnitude, so let me discuss some interesting specifics.

The Library is awful and you should skip it if possible. The campaign's pacing is significantly improved without it, it emphasizes everything bad about the game while downplaying everything good, Bungie devs have stated multiple times that it shouldn't have been shipped, etc. Everyone knows it's trash and I'm going to pretend like it doesn't exist now, moving on.

Weapon balancing here is my favorite in the series. Everything feels powerful and situationally useful. The pistol, shotgun, and power weapons are obviously good, but the plasma pistol has great accuracy and damage even with the primary fire, the plasma rifle stuns enemies who take sustained hits, and the needler is a great Elite killer if you have the positioning for it. Even the assault rifle occasionally comes in handy against Grunts or Flood.

A huge issue with this game is the difficulty balancing. Heroic is hilariously easy for some reason, with even high-rank Elites quickly melting to plasma pistol fire. Legendary has a lot of nice changes to health (Elites don't die instantly), enemy encounters (more enemies with higher ranks), and AI (dodges grenades and fire more often), but you also take tons of damage, especially on your shield. This makes it easy to get stuck on one health pip for long periods, which makes the game into more of a cover shooter, encourages the linear playstyles like plasma pistol overcharge sniping, etc. This could have been fixed by simply placing more health packs (occasionally this does happen, why does Keyes have so many?) or perhaps raising the minimum health value like Reach did. All that being said, if you are good at single-player FPS I would still recommend Legendary, or maybe Heroic with some specific skull combination.

Enemy design and AI (of the Covenant) is stellar. This is well-known and discussed, see here and here for some other people's writeups.

Flood, not so much. A melee-focused swarming faction is an okay idea on paper, but they don't have anything close to the Covenant's differentiation, AI behaviors, or health/shield tradeoff. Fighting them isn't horrible, but I'd be lying if I said I ever looked forward to it. Special dishonorable mention to the infection forms, which block checkpoints and are constantly a chore to clean up. Thankfully, many of your encounters with the Flood are in infighting scenarios where they can be toyed with or ignored.

The level design isn't as bad as most suggest IMO. It's less that they reuse environments, and more that a bunch of the missions are too long. Assault on the Control Room has you fight in the same room + bridge geometry 3 times, but they try to mix it up with different enemy compositions (especially notable: the bridge with Elites blocking your path while Hunters on the other bridge shell you across the gap). But there aren't enough unique ideas to totally sustain the momentum, and I suspect they would have had difficulty adding more.

Let me elaborate. There are broadly two styles of FPS enemy design. On one end is Doom, whose enemies are simple but highly differentiated, and form interesting situations with how they are placed and combined by the mapper. On the other is Half-Life and FEAR, whose enemies are complex but similar, and present new situations via the dynamism of their AI. Halo is great because its AI belongs to the latter school, but its enemy designs bring in much of the former's differentiation.

A side effect of this though is that the levels in general don't feel as distinct from each other as e.g. Doom maps might, since the enemies and weapon economy are less sensitive to small tweaks in placements and terrain. Halo 3 gets around this by using tons of setpieces, though this has the tradeoff of needing more budget and potentially feeling gimmickier (and 3 has the unforced error of worse fundamentals than 1). Perhaps they could have made more arena geometries, but I suspect the lowest hanging fruit was all picked, so the game should have just been a bit shorter.

After this playthrough, I'm comfortable calling Halo my favorite of the "dynamic AI driven FPS", (with classic Doom the king of the opposing style) and Halo 1 tied with 3 for my favorite entry in the series. Great stuff!