or as I have taken to calling it:

Pretty Much Nothing Happens: The Video Game

seriously it starts, then Chief goes to where Cortana is, then Cortana leaves, and Chief goes to Sanghelios

I guess there's the whole thing on Meridia, and the very short war on Sanghelios, but none of the characters in that portion of the game felt important, and the conflict all felt manufactured and auxiliary to the plot

characters who could've been great like Governor Sloan and Exuberant Witness felt like they were shoved in at the last second, and were completely flat as characters

Sloan's betrayal didn't even feel moderately as close to game changing as Guilty Spark's, and Exuberant Witness pretty much only existed to open doors

even the Arbiter was boring
where we should see his triumphant charge to finally break his people of the old ways, and become a beacon of hope for the future of Sanghelios, we more see him getting his butt kicked then he gets saved by the Spartans and that's pretty much it

what made him work in Halo 2 was his pain and his failure, and the second chance he knew he didn't deserve, and watching that turn slowly into revelation that his failure was not only inevitable, but also that his task only served to perpetuate a lie that kept his people enslaved

Halo 5 could have been the culmination of that, but instead it got breezed over as an subplot that's only kinda there if you look for it

I'm grossly disappointed

I love how the main villain is killed in a cutscene in the beginning so that they can shove Cortana in.
I love how the Prometheans are still an enemy even though their leader (and the one who controlled them) is dead.

Not only does nothing happen, but the things that DO are retarded.

I like how Frank O Connor and Brian Reed seriously want us to believe that Cortana has a legitamate and justified cause, and they insist that she's not evil while having her disintegrating random civilians on some backwater planet for no recognizable reason.

Meanwhile they continue to declare Dr. Halsey to be the devil at every given opportunity even though there was more than enough legitimate reason and results to justify her actions.

dr halsey is a villain but not for the reasons 343i give

She really isn't though. She was genuinely trying to stop a developing nulear war, and she know ONI-chan would have done far worse without her involvement. In fact they did anyway, and yet nobody bothers to call out Kurt or even Ackerson who was legitimately the most evil person in Halo for intentionally sending literally hundreds of 12 year olds to their deaths, whereas Halsey did her absolute best for the S2s for as long as she could.

Quote from: Fedorekd on March 28, 2018, 07:49:23 AM

dr halsey is a villain but not for the reasons 343i give

She really isn't though. She was genuinely trying to stop a developing nulear war, and she know ONI-chan would have done far worse without her involvement. In fact they did anyway, and yet nobody bothers to call out Kurt or even Ackerson who was legitimately the most evil person in Halo for intentionally sending literally hundreds of 12 year olds to their deaths, whereas Halsey did her absolute best for the S2s for as long as she could.

She worked to prop up and enable a fascist, imperialist regime using child soldiers.

Quote from: FatherlyNick on March 28, 2018, 06:22:13 AM

I love how the main villain is killed in a cutscene in the beginning so that they can shove Cortana in.
I love how the Prometheans are still an enemy even though their leader (and the one who controlled them) is dead.

Not only does nothing happen, but the things that DO are retarded.

I kind of get why they did that with M'dama

how could M'dama's death be meaningful if Arbiter already slayed Truth, symbolically severing his people's bond with the covenant in Halo 3

the big scene where the covenant shatters already happened, and Jul M'dama only ever served to further Halsey's ends, so he just wasn't needed anymore when she decided to go home, and he went out as her pawn, like he had lived

we didn't need a big confrontation with him, because he was never really the mastermind of that story arc

In the novels he was built up pretty well. Spartan Ops jerked us till blue balls with him and then they won't even give us the courtesy of fighting him in-game. I'm not saying it should be a Tartarus-tier boss fight, but don't fucking push him off an edge in a cutscene on the first mission.

chef es0p teh gardens hue

Quote from: Dɪᴏ Nᴏʟᴏs on March 28, 2018, 06:56:05 AM

Quote from: FatherlyNick on March 28, 2018, 06:22:13 AM

I love how the main villain is killed in a cutscene in the beginning so that they can shove Cortana in.
I love how the Prometheans are still an enemy even though their leader (and the one who controlled them) is dead.

Not only does nothing happen, but the things that DO are retarded.

I kind of get why they did that with M'dama

how could M'dama's death be meaningful if Arbiter already slayed Truth, symbolically severing his people's bond with the covenant in Halo 3

the big scene where the covenant shatters already happened, and Jul M'dama only ever served to further Halsey's ends, so he just wasn't needed anymore when she decided to go home, and he went out as her pawn, like he had lived

we didn't need a big confrontation with him, because he was never really the mastermind of that story arc

In the novels he was built up pretty well. Spartan Ops jerked us till blue balls with him and then they won't even give us the courtesy of fighting him in-game. I'm not saying it should be a Tartarus-tier boss fight, but don't fucking push him off an edge in a cutscene on the first mission.

I did read Thursday War and Mortal Didacta, but considering the way the franchise has shit all over Fall of Reach, which is one of my favorite books of all time, I don't really put a lot of stock in the books anymore.

And while we're at it can we just discuss how HUNTtheTRUTH was one of the best pieces of Halo media and how it was utterly wasted on Halo 5

Yeah it was very disappointing. Then again it's 343i so...

Quote from: Dɪᴏ Nᴏʟᴏs on March 28, 2018, 09:41:18 PM

I did read Thursday War and Mortal Didacta,

My condolences.

If you've already done First Strike, The Flood adn Ghosts of Onyx as well you could try Cryptum if you're willing to give it a chance. It's not for everyone though and It's certainly not at all the same as Nylund's books, but the stuff about the forerunners is cool.

(And if you liked Ghosts of Onyx, avoid Legacy of Onyx like the plauge)

Why would you recommend the fucking Forerunner shit to someone who liked The Fall of Reach? They're about as far apart as two science fiction works can get.

Cryptum and Silentium are the best Halo books.

"No!"

>What was the point in the opening cutscene with Halsey and Cortana?
>What the fuck was the point in the Janus Key?
>Why did ONI go from trying to kill Halsey to rescuing her?
>If the composer is gone, how are there still all these Prometheans around? Surely The Flood wouldn't have been an issue if the Didact had that many beforehand.
>Why did no one from either Blue Team or Osiris help Chief/Locke respectively during their 1v1? Blue Team was trying to do everything to help Chief and Osiris had orders.
>How is there still enough Covenant for a civil war on Sanghelios? You would think after the events of Halo 3, they would've splintered heavily.
>Why bother bringing back Cortana in the first place? It completely throws away any defense Halo 4 had for it's story over Chief being more "human".
>Why would you tie integral parts of the story to outside media? The player shouldn't need to do homework to understand the story of the game, even if it does start In Medias Res.
>Why is this game so fucking bad?

-I think 343i were initially trying to blame Halsey for Cortana's actions I gues

-None anymore after 343i panic shelved everything about Halo 4 and wrote it out of existance

-Halsey warned them about the Guardians/Cortana

-Didact only Composed most of humanity right before the Librarian canned him. He never got a chance to use them.

-Because Brian Reed is writing it.

-There are quite a few sizable Covie Remnants none of which are really the original covenant. Jul's is a long story involving shitty Karen Traviss writing.

-Because having a poorly revived multiplayer clearly means you have to ditch your entire story for some reason

-Nothing from outside media is going to help you with Halo 5's shitty story. This is a bad meme perpetuated by YouTubers who have no idea what they are talking about and it needs to die. As a matter of fact, knowing the Halo EU makes Halo 5 worse if anything.

-...where does one even begin explaining this.

Halo 5's campaign is honestly as bad as vanilla D1's story. It's so bad that it feels like bad fanfiction. I played through it on solo legendary when I first got the game and I've played like 2 hours of it since. The best mission was by far Battle of Sunaion, and even that mission just had looks going for it.

Nothing about it makes sense. Wtf was even the point of Halo 4 if Cortana was just going to be brought back in Halo 5? Where did all the Promethean soldiers and guardians come from? Halo 4 didn't even hint their existence. Plus, who thought Osiris would even be a good idea? As a whole, the team is dry and forgettable (Buck is the best but even he is lacking in H5)? I could go on all day about H5.

And 343's belief that you have to read all the books and comics to understand what's going on in a fucking main Halo game is bullshit. Nobody should have to drop money on top of what they paid for the game to understand its story.

none of the halo books are good. theyre all boring and a chore to get through.

Says the Scream for Five Episodes Ball Z fan.