This review contains spoilers
I honestly had no idea what I was getting into when starting this for the first time, especially taking into consideration the immense negative feedback most fans have towards this game. After playing it I can say that I…kind of understand their viewpoint to an extent.
The story is the biggest detraction I would say, and I definitely see the hatred towards it. Apparently you needed to brush up on a ton of external material (books, tv shows, podcasts, in addition to games) in order to understand what’s even going on, and even after looking into the main gist of what occurred during the story I STILL don’t fully understand what was happening. Apparently Cortana is a villain now which basically undermined the impact of Halo 4’s great ending, that’s something I did pick up on and wasn’t very happy with. And on top of that, the game just ends so abruptly, like after you “deal” with Cortana the way the game leaves you at the end credits is just super weird and unsatisfying, maybe that’s something I’ll be more satisfied on when I get to Halo Infinite, but I digress.
Gameplay is more or less similar to Halo 4 with a few changes. Firstly the game is squad based, you get paired up with 3 other AI companions aiding you throughout the course of the campaign, and their contributions are hit or miss. If you get downed, they can revive you meaning effectively you can restart at checkpoints way less than usual. I’m on and off about this feature because the AI in this game really REALLY loves you, like if you call for help they will straight up make a beeline to your location in an attempt to revive you. Now while this usually worked for me, it also makes them a sitting target in the line of huge enemy fire, meaning all 3 of them could blow up before they even get the chance to revive you. In my experience though they pulled their own weight just fine so they weren’t really a detraction.
In addition to new weapons and vehicles, you also get a thruster, a…ground pound technique(?), and a tackle, and honestly I actually dig these changes to your moveset quite a bit, adds a ton more mobility to your arsenal. Unfortunately the enemies are aware of these abilities too, so in exchange they’re MUCH more accurate with their weapons than previously, meaning in a heated battle your shield depletes VERY quickly. This does effectively turn the game into more of a cover shooter slowing the pace down. I don’t think it’s as egregious as Halo 2 though, you don’t really feel like a glass pigeon in Halo 5. Not helping things are some of the enemies in this game. I don’t know WHAT they did to the Promethean Knights in this game but they are literal bullet sponges, tanking so much damage and knocking you out in like 1-2 hits max. I don’t recall them being this much of an issue in Halo 4.
The bosses suck though. Oh sorry, did I say “bosses” as in, more than 1? My mistake, I just meant “boss”. The Warden is basically the only boss you ever face and the game just lazily copy pastes him throughout the course of the campaign. The first couple of times you fought him, it was cool, neat, whatever, but for the 60th time and with the addition of fighting more than one on screen at once, sorry but it’s starting to get old.
The game looks gorgeous visually, the landscapes and environments are crisp and very well detailed all around. In general this game just exists to me. I can’t really get gamer angry at it because truth be told it’s not really giving me anything to get angry AT, nor is it really giving me anything to have fun with either. A middle of the road score given to a middle of the road game.
Still better than CE though I’ll give it that.
The story is the biggest detraction I would say, and I definitely see the hatred towards it. Apparently you needed to brush up on a ton of external material (books, tv shows, podcasts, in addition to games) in order to understand what’s even going on, and even after looking into the main gist of what occurred during the story I STILL don’t fully understand what was happening. Apparently Cortana is a villain now which basically undermined the impact of Halo 4’s great ending, that’s something I did pick up on and wasn’t very happy with. And on top of that, the game just ends so abruptly, like after you “deal” with Cortana the way the game leaves you at the end credits is just super weird and unsatisfying, maybe that’s something I’ll be more satisfied on when I get to Halo Infinite, but I digress.
Gameplay is more or less similar to Halo 4 with a few changes. Firstly the game is squad based, you get paired up with 3 other AI companions aiding you throughout the course of the campaign, and their contributions are hit or miss. If you get downed, they can revive you meaning effectively you can restart at checkpoints way less than usual. I’m on and off about this feature because the AI in this game really REALLY loves you, like if you call for help they will straight up make a beeline to your location in an attempt to revive you. Now while this usually worked for me, it also makes them a sitting target in the line of huge enemy fire, meaning all 3 of them could blow up before they even get the chance to revive you. In my experience though they pulled their own weight just fine so they weren’t really a detraction.
In addition to new weapons and vehicles, you also get a thruster, a…ground pound technique(?), and a tackle, and honestly I actually dig these changes to your moveset quite a bit, adds a ton more mobility to your arsenal. Unfortunately the enemies are aware of these abilities too, so in exchange they’re MUCH more accurate with their weapons than previously, meaning in a heated battle your shield depletes VERY quickly. This does effectively turn the game into more of a cover shooter slowing the pace down. I don’t think it’s as egregious as Halo 2 though, you don’t really feel like a glass pigeon in Halo 5. Not helping things are some of the enemies in this game. I don’t know WHAT they did to the Promethean Knights in this game but they are literal bullet sponges, tanking so much damage and knocking you out in like 1-2 hits max. I don’t recall them being this much of an issue in Halo 4.
The bosses suck though. Oh sorry, did I say “bosses” as in, more than 1? My mistake, I just meant “boss”. The Warden is basically the only boss you ever face and the game just lazily copy pastes him throughout the course of the campaign. The first couple of times you fought him, it was cool, neat, whatever, but for the 60th time and with the addition of fighting more than one on screen at once, sorry but it’s starting to get old.
The game looks gorgeous visually, the landscapes and environments are crisp and very well detailed all around. In general this game just exists to me. I can’t really get gamer angry at it because truth be told it’s not really giving me anything to get angry AT, nor is it really giving me anything to have fun with either. A middle of the road score given to a middle of the road game.
Still better than CE though I’ll give it that.