yknow i think i just have a problem with non-linear storytelling, or at least this specific way of doing it where you go find a "piece" of the story, then go find another completely separate piece that's not necessarily directly before or after the previous piece
it just kind of annoys me when i'm like "oh i wonder what happened to that guy" only to find another story piece where someone goes "...blah blah after he DIED blah blah..." and i'm just like "oh okay i guess he's dead now" and then i find another separate piece where it's like "oh no he might DIE?? what will HAPPEN?" and i already know exactly what will happen because the other story piece just fucking told me
anyways i found most of the pieces of this game in order so i actually liked it!
the core concept of looking for little pieces of evidence of your other squad mates and suddenly being like "i know EVERYTHING that happened now" is a little funny but the actual gameplay mechanic of playing through what happened, recontextualizing the areas of the game you just went through is pretty cool and i enjoyed it a lot
also you're NOT master chief which means you can't dual-wield weapons (this is the only gameplay change)
oh my god are these some of the most generic human designs ive ever seen, the squad leader guy straight up looks like some sort of human-proportioned minecraft steve recreation while the boss lady looks like she was designed by someone who doesn't know what women look like (and i dont mean that in a "male gaze" way i mean that in a "the designer was a gay man" way (i don't know who the character designer(s) actually was and i dont care enough to find out))

all in all though i enjoyed the concept, the story, and the gameplay and it wasn't even too long, the city walking sections were pretty alright despite me expecting them to drag on

cortana does NOT exist in this game

it's better than halo 2!
lol at the background image for the backloggd page
i cant believe there was actually an ending to this story
like yeah there's a "oh what will happen next?" kind of ending but they wrapped up basically every outstanding plot thread before it so they could literally continue it however they want
the arbiter just being your homie in the game is pretty fun
side note- i looked up mods for the game to see if there were any sort of revamp projects to make it more faithful to the OG release (like how there are for sonic games) and the only thing i found was big booby arbiter mods
like 5 different versions too it was kind of wild
in this game cortana is really goofy looking and is shown in the most unflattering angles throughout the majority of the game (for lore reasons)
im kind of sad there were less "gun down your enemies with a turret" moments but it was very much made up with the whole "just take the turret with you" mechanic
my god people look ghoulish in this game, like genuinely disturbing faces
everyone except miranda for some reason, miranda looked pretty normal
why are the boss fights in all these games so anti-climactic, like idk if it's because there's no health bar or clear attack-defend cycle like in other games but i basically just shot the boss, and then they died
i think this game was a pretty good length, not repetitive like the first and not dragging on too long like the second
its right in the goldilocks zone (thats a space reference)

its better than halo 1!
way more diverse and less "where the fuck do i go" moments
also the arbiter is cool, nice change of pace and it actually made me kind of sad when i couldn't go into invisible mode when i was master chief
although i do find it funny that the arbiter is basically just some guy in plate armor
in this game, cortana has become blue (this is good)
im pretty sure the entirety of the development team ceased existence right before they could finish the ending because the game just ends
just like this!