Is Halo Reach as Rewarding as Halo 3?

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Trando434

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I just beat Halo Reach on Legendary solo, it has taken me about three weeks (yes that is a very long time compared to some of you). I'd think it would be extremely rewarding now that I have beaten the game on the hardest real difficulty, but actually I feel like I didn't even accomplish anything. In Halo 3 if you managed to beat it on Legendary not only were you treated to the teaser of the next Halo game in the story, but also a nice piece of different armor. All I got was a helmet attachment to a helmet I don't even like the look of and no Legendary Ending to even speak of (http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/30564-Halo-Legendary-Ending-Speculation! shameless I know :) ) In Halo 3 all of the armor was unique and very cool to look at, Reach is the same way only it feels like the vast amount of armor we were promised now is just a meager selection compared to the armory we were thinking of, like seriously only two helmet attatchments to choose from I wanna mix and match. The "collectables" in game also disappoint a little bit too, what do we get when we find every data pad, no shiny ninja themed armor, what do we get when we murder every B.O.B. in the game, no katana, for heaven's sake there you don't even find skulls in Campaign, personally that was my favorite part of Halo 3 and Halo 2, finding the skulls. Don't take this the wrong way though, I love Reach: the gameplay, the graphics, the story, the multiplayer. It just seems that the expectations I had for the armory and the campaign have been dashed after the arduous climb from Solo Legendary. And speaking of the levels, does anyone feel like they cut the campaign up? There seems to be plot holes from the transition from one level to the next. Does anyone else feel this way, or am I the only one?
 
I do feel like the somewhat cut the campaign . The transition from nightfall to tip of the spear was quite jarring and confusing (time wise) . Overall, Poor transitioning on bungies part.
 
As mush as i hate to, i have to agree. I finished reach and since then it just feels like something was missing through the experience that i cant quit figure out, even now. I was disappointed in the armoury, the small selection and amount of helms that personally, i think are "Ugly" just didn't cut it. Even if i got my Live account back online and ranked it up (Ridicules offline credit/ranking bull) i wouldn't even stray from my Grenadier helm and Halo chest with base security shoulders and tactical hard case.

Also the scale of the invasion on reach, i think it never came to fruition. While i could fight more enemies at once, it felt smaller than conflicts in other halo games. It was all so localized to a small section of reach it felt as if the conflict was over a small stretch of land and i was fighting against One ship and One battalion and nothing more. The only time i felt reach was truly in trouble was during the lone wolf mission, the very end. The fact that the covenant got that many forces on Reach to begin with at the game start without anyone noticing just bugs the heck out of me, seriously.
 
After the hype dies down, the disappointment sets in.

Yeah, even the armory aside, I didn't feel as much involved in a struggle over an entire planet in the campaign. I mean, in the first Halo, you had a sense of "oh my god, these aliens will kill everything if I don't stop them here." And when the second Halo hit, the Battle of Earth was canonically smaller, but by the time you've fought on Delta Halo and started Halo 3, you really feel like the whole planet's in trouble if you don't fight back. Even more so, when the Ark Portal opens and you realize the full scale of this galactic war. In Reach, it's all focused on individual battles, and not the entire Fall of Reach, until the last couple levels. More enemies on screen does not a vaster battlefield create. Bungie skimped on the storytelling and the game suffered.

Plus, there are really very few helmets and helmet combos I like, and most of the rest of the armor just looks like mild rehashes of the stock piece.
 
I don't get it.... See I like reading Tom clancy novels. He jumps around on some things, but most of all he tries to hit the story the best he can. He tries to keep everything to be as close to what could possibly happen as possible. And that is what I think happened with Reach.
Yea I felt a little cheated, but I was able to understand that those holes in some spots, to me, Were necessary. Do you really think a ground scale invasion force can be put together in a few hours? No, it takes days, maybe weeks to get enough manpower together. And if the entire planet is fighting... then your resources are cut further...

The only thing I was disappointed with really, was the fact that we didn't get to plant a Nuke into a Supercarrier. That would've been fun. But then we would have some people saying that it would be too COD like in story.

I never got to play Halo 3 Multi-player, on the fact that I couldn't stand how people played it at the time. I thought the Armory in 3, Grant it was really cool, but it just looked too cartoony to me.

Reach gave it a more militaristic feel, like walking into a gun cage and taking your pick of whats been set-up. Now it would have been seriously Awesome if the armor you got in the armory actually did extra things for your character, But not one piece would be better then all the rest though. They all would have a nice bit to add forth from just the basic gear.
Like the HP/Halo gear, would if it allowed you to carry more grenades and gave you a 10% higher boost in defense for chest hits.
Or the gungnir giving you an advanced Telescoping Bi-noc, so you didn't need a rifle to look far away and gave you a slight increase to the def. of your head. Those're things that I was irked about.
 
With all due respect, I feel like some of you guys are acting like spoiled children regarding the Reach Armory. They did nothing but add so many more options, and you're still not satisfied? Especially considering that in Halo 3 we could only change 4 things on our Spartan, and in Halo 2, nothing. I'm fairly sure that they could have added every conceivable Armory option, and some people would still not be happy.

I'm not going to blindly defend the game, but I enjoy it even though I recognize it's not perfect and there are things I dislike. If your expectations of the game were at the correct level, you should not be or have been disappointed. But expecting Bungie to read your mind and (for example) include some extremely specific event in the campaign that you wanted, and being disappointed when they didn't is a little absurd.

You have to consider the game the way Bungie does: as something that will be experienced by millions of different players, each with their own preferences, styles of play, etc, and that they want us to play the game for as long as possible. It's impossible for them to 100% please everyone. A lot of the things you may not like, such as rank/credit limits, are in place because of your fellow a$$hole players who would abuse the system somehow those limits were not implemented.

All I'm saying is that I think people need to be a little open minded when judging things, especially things like video games.
 
Even if they did add the options, a lot of them weren't distinctive from each other, or outright ugly, according to much of the community. In Halo 3, there were fewer options, but each of them was very unique and made your character special and definitively different. In Reach, there are a few pretty or cheap ones and everyone goes to them, and, I mean, I've already met 3 identical spartans online, to my ODST-esque avatar. And in this way, it feels unrewarding. I mean, we all appreciate the work they put into it, but it's not quite what we wanted.

Even still, my biggest complaint is the story felt small, and as if it didn't actually encompass the whole planet. It's supposed to be the Fall of Reach, right? How come we only fight a few battles against small groups, until the Supercarrier uncloaks, and then fly a small space mission, retake one city, fly over that same city as it gets blasted, and retake a base before it looks like the planet is really doomed? Couldn't they have delved deeper into the actual fall or the final resistances? Maybe shown us some of the things already established in the mythos, like a super-MAC station or CASTLE base? And aside from feeling small, it was choppy. One moment, you're in a mountain range on Reach, the next, you're on a narrow ledge over a canyon at night, and the next, you're in a Warthog, charging across a plain, with no transition.
 
there were no epic driving levels this time around or the sense of time were you had to get things done fast i just walked casually through reaches short and unfinished campaign
 
"Reach gave it a more militaristic feel, like walking into a gun cage and taking your pick of whats been set-up. Now it would have been seriously Awesome if the armor you got in the armory actually did extra things for your character, But not one piece would be better then all the rest though. They all would have a nice bit to add forth from just the basic gear."

Im not so sure about that. On the one hand, it would be awesome. But what if your desired effects and Cosmetic appeal were incompatible? that would be annoying...
 
To me, Reach was nothing more than a surge for money... I dropped 550 on the Reach console and Legendary edition thinking "OMG ITLL BE AWESOME", I beat the campaign in about 4 hours, and literally just set the controller down and went to bed. No cheering, no "give me more!", and no "I have to tell all my friends about this!". Instead, I felt that the 'character driven story' failed- may not be true for everyone- but I didn't feel any sort of connection or sympathy for any of the characters. It was like playing a CoD campaign and watching your infinite allies get gunned down, except in this case they were spartans you were supposed to care about. No vehicle-driven levels (New Alexandria doesnt count as all it consisted of was waiting for your burst cannon to blow up banshees), no feeling of needing to get something done, and worst of all- it ruined the Fall of Reach book by placing the PoA planetside. The only bit that actually got my heart beating faster was the final objective of "survive" simply because it was finally down to caring about my character, rather than Noble team... All I have to say is Meh...
 
as far as the planet wide battle; in the book, half the planet was glassed very quickly because the covenant had nothing to search for. by that alone you can assume the same senario. cortana was their goal, not the rest of the planet. that alone would tighten the story setting
 
Cortana wasn't even their goal. Their goal was a Forerunner Slipspace crystal buried near CASTLE Base. That isn't even REFERENCED in Halo Reach, and it's the whole reason Reach fell! "Character-driven" is a term that means plotless. The characters aren't deep enough to drive the story to satisfaction, and the story isn't strong enough to deepen the characters, satisfyingly. The more I boil it down, the more disappointed I am in Reach's campaign. Yet again, I find myself drawn back to Halo 2.
 
Cortana wasn't even their goal. Their goal was a Forerunner Slipspace crystal buried near CASTLE Base. That isn't even REFERENCED in Halo Reach, and it's the whole reason Reach fell! "Character-driven" is a term that means plotless. The characters aren't deep enough to drive the story to satisfaction, and the story isn't strong enough to deepen the characters, satisfyingly. The more I boil it down, the more disappointed I am in Reach's campaign. Yet again, I find myself drawn back to Halo 2.

Halo 2 was ok, but to me it seemed like the campaign was just that of halo 1 but rehashed. You start out with covenant invading your ship, then once on the ground you have to search for scattered troops, before being sent into an enemy controlled station to find a high priority target (Although here you kill him instead of rescue him)... and so forth.
Dont get me wrong, i enjoyed playing it, but i still feel Halo 1 had the best atmosphere, story and charector out of all of the games so far.
 
"Reach gave it a more militaristic feel, like walking into a gun cage and taking your pick of whats been set-up. Now it would have been seriously Awesome if the armor you got in the armory actually did extra things for your character, But not one piece would be better then all the rest though. They all would have a nice bit to add forth from just the basic gear."

Im not so sure about that. On the one hand, it would be awesome. But what if your desired effects and Cosmetic appeal were incompatible? that would be annoying...

That's just how I view customizing. I used to play a Game called Armored core. Not one unit was better than the other. It was all Pilot skill really. You could have some parts that looked the way you wanted too, and some that gave you great abilities but looked just gawdy and squanderish at the same time. Again, I like looking at things from that point of view.

Don't get me wrong though, I do love how much they added to the gameplay, The graphics, and in going back to the original controls was pretty fun. I never read the books. Grant it I bet they're pretty good. But a lot of halo's fan really haven't. I could line up 10 random Halo Fans off the street and 3 out of 10 would know what the books talk about.

Armor designs were off the charts when it came to detail and design. I just thought it would be cool if the armor had skills and perks to add. Just my opinion.
 
Armor designs were off the charts when it came to detail and design. I just thought it would be cool if the armor had skills and perks to add. Just my opinion.

Aye, I have to agree with you there, but I must add that when the super hard core players that get the best armor get in a fight, they would have a very large natural advantage vs most other players. Although there is a small advantage that comes with not wearing attachments and having the smaller helmet: it makes you a smaller target.

PS: Armored Core FTW
 
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