Me and my friend finished up Halo Reach today on legendary. I really loved the ending. I think it’s probably one of my favorite endings out of all the Halo games so far. 3 might be tied though.
I really liked how Noble Six gets to carry your customization options. It makes it a lot easier i feel like to get attached to him since there’s now pieces of you in him. And the final objective just being “survive” i felt like really drove home the kind of urgent hope that if you just hold on long enough then help with come, despite it never doing so. It being a post credits scene i really like too. It kind of feels like the game is saying “surprise” and then punching you in the stomach, in a good way, at least narratively.
Then there’s the cracks in your helmet that slowly form as you take more damage. The way i saw it it kind of showed that you’re not coming back from this situation, like how the cracks aren’t going away. I’m probably reading too much into it, but that’s the fun part about art like this, you get to personally divulge as much meaning as you like from it.
Story’s with somber endings like this are some of my favorite too read. I often feel like they’re the ones that stick with me the longest. I’m not sure why it is, but i’ve always associated it with just from feeling sad over the deaths involved in the story.
It’s a bit dorky, but i wanted to show off that i have 100% of the missions complete on legendary because i’m really proud of it, because this has taken me and my usual gaming buddy nearly a year to play through (mostly spent on Halo 2 Legendary).
LASO is hopefully next, but i’ve also been playing through the entire Master Chief Saga with one of my siblings so they can have that experience of the “Cool older sibling that plays video games with them” that i wish i had growing up, so maybe i’ll let Halo cool for a bit after (to be honest though, i’m a bit addicted i think so maybe i won’t be staying away as long as i think).
Going back to Reach though, i really like how you got to see the events of the Planet being Glassed in the background of the story towards the end. It kind of felt like it was hovering over you the entire time. And seeing the destruction of the earlier levels too was a fun detail because you already have an idea of what it looks like mostly un-glassed.
And the way it connects directly to the start of CE is a lot of fun too. It felt like Bungie’s farewell to the franchise, and they showed it by having the ending take you back to the start.
Overall, i really liked it. It was a lot of fun to play through and really scratched that itch i have for games with a deep narrative.
Current Objective
Survive
A real core memory
uncontrolled sobbing
I’ve never understood why Reach got so much shit at launch and still sees some to this day. It’s a very good game. Ever since halo 3 wrapped The series has just been checking off boxes with their missions and making you fight pretty typical engagements. Here’s the tank level, here’s the warthog level, etc. Reach Is a very focused, dynamic experience from start to finish
I keep hearing that Reach wasn’t very popular on launch and I just don’t get how. It’s a perfect Halo game. To be honest. If Halo had to end. I think Reach would have been the perfect way to do it.
I think a lot of it is that it’s direction was a bit different. Halo was built on basically immortal Master Chief. Reach had Spartan 3s, which weren’t as “Master Chief”-y, and we see every one of em die on screen as part of the story. That is a pretty stark contrast to Chief never dying. Additionally, if IIRC, the multiplayer was meh, and multiplayer was a huuuuge deal at that time. The story was great (even despite what people said about it at the time) but the multiplayer didn’t carry the game, so it was generally a “play the story, go back to Halo 3” kinda game.
My perspective on it, tho.
It did well tbh but there was just an entire meme culture knocking it for some reason. I remember seeing it get a lot of shit on Reddit back when I browsed it. It kind of surprised me in a lot of ways.
I think a lot of it was driven by people wanting to dunk on Microsoft and halo fans in particular. People still dunk on Microsoft, but halo isn’t as fun to dunk on anymore now that the series has completely gone off the rails and has an uncertain future
