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Gaming / Fuck Brian Reed (Halo 5 Rant)
« on: November 20, 2015, 06:02:43 AM »
NOTE: I have far more to write about this whole shitshow that is Halo 5s story, what I have here is but the prologue, so enjoy reading a wall of text once i'm done. but I am sleepy as fuck. Ill continue when I wake up
TL;DR : Halo 5s story is fucking shit and Brian Reed should be executed in a giant blender
UPDATE: Added Tanake
So I've finally come to grips with just how fucking godawful Halo 5s story is and I just felt like dumping my thoughts somewhere so here I go. I guess I'll list of points of everything about the story I hate, and Is a shame because interspersed within this mess are too many relay great moments completely eclipsed by shit or completely wasted potential. This is going to be a more rantty rough draft of something I hope to be more substantial someday so any input is appreciated. Ill fix the grammar and paragraph structure and shit later if it's fucked up.
Im going to try to steer clear of HUNTtheTRUTH and it's disconnect from Halo 5's story, since apparanlty is was conceived separately, so I guess it's not relay fair to judge and Ad campaign that was disconnected by nature, (Even though the point of an ad campaign is by nature supopsed to be relevant) although I may make a separate section for it.
Characters
Lets start of with the characters. The worst thing about them all is that every single character was, in a theory pretty interesting, and could have had so many dynamics that played into their interaction and arcs but so much if not all of it is completely squandered. Lets start with Locke shall we?
Locke
Nightfall wasn't very good but is set Locke up in an interesting way, his first encounter with a Spartan II (Randal) could have and was supposed to be a major impact on him. Witnessing Randal's leadership was supposed to have majorly influenced his view if what a Spartan was supposed to be. This could have played into so many things, especially his view of the Chief, but it literally never plays into anything, we don't even get to know what Locke's actual opinions on anything are.
One way they could have gone for example was having Locke comparing Chief to Randal, maybe idolizing Randal as sort of a gold standard for Spartans and Chief being a disgrace to that ideal. On the other hand the fact that both Chief and Randal are deserters, it could have instead given him some kind of sympathy for Chief, feeling that Spartan 2s would have a good reason for going AWOL and, thus leading him to want to learn the truth about what is going on.
Unfortunately nothing like that actually happens, instead we get a pretty boring drone of a character, who's only actual personality trait other than "follow orders" being his diplomatic nature which did actually carry over from Nightfall.
Buck/Thorne
Let's get this strait, Buck is only thrown in for fanservice. Now that does not take away from his very good established back story, he's still a great character outside of Halo 5, but the real reason he was put in was because they couldn't get Thorne's actor and they wanted the nostgiafags to shut the fuck up, if only for 30 seconds.
Speaking of Thorne let me go on a tangent briefly, because it was clear they were setting him up as a protagonist since Halo 4. In my personal opinion he could have been a great character to have had instead of Buck. Not because I don't like Buck, but because Thorne was set up as a character that would have worked well with Halo 5's basic premise. Thorne is shown to be particularly inquisitive and hold especial curiosity when It comes to the Spartan IIs. His backstory also in a way mirrors the Chief in that the Didact's attack on earth took loved ones from them. They are both traumatized from their losses and have pushed themselves to the extremes following as a result. (John taking missions nonstop and Thorne actually becoming a Spartan himself with the though that he could have saved his family if he was stronger) Throne not only had plenty of room to grow from this but it could have also given him a unique character dynamic with John.
But then again with how the game turned out, that would have probably been completely squandered as well, and he'd be about as big of a brick as Locke was.
Now onto Buck himself, Halo New Blood left Buck in a particularly good point to develop his character. After losing the Rookie, Dutch retiring, and Mickey's betrayal, Buck felt incompetent as a leader and thus stepped down from his leadership role. This could have have been used to great effect in developing him and potentially the other members of Osiris, especially since the are a new team after all. One example could be Buck questioning or challenging Locke's leadership, since he himself is still so used to being a leader. There's plently of ways i'm sure this could have been taken, but instead he as well as everyone else (exept for John I guess) remains completely static. And any chance they do have to explore his backstory is relegated to a few lines of Fanservice-y dialouge.
Wasted backstory is probably going to be the theme here so just bare with me.
Tanaka
Now Tanaka and Vale are the only two charachters who's backstories are actualy used and lent to the stories naratives but in tanaka's case in particular it is barely substantial. Her dialogue on Meridian was done ok. They ackgnowlaged her background of being from a glassed planet, and how it gave her a unique prspective on the glassed colony, but the problem is that is does not lend it'self to the narrative at large. Tanaka could have maybe felt bad for the residents urged the team to help people that may have been to far out of their way, or maybe her unique knowledge of glassed planets could have let her find some kind of quirk in the glassed terrain that could help them get around better. Or they could have her be the one primarily interacting with the citizens or Meridian, and have them be more open to her after hearing her background. Anything that had some sort of bearing to the story at large would be nice. Another thing that seemed underdeveloped was her apparent skills as an engineer. This is probably her most underdeveloped trait as a whole, even not counting Halo 5, we've never actualy seen her do anything regarding engineering, all she gets is like 3 feet extra on her motion tracker which is pretty underwhelming. They could have done something with it, gameplay-wise or story-wise. Maybe have her help fix some stuff on Meridian to gain their trust, or make her the only one who can activate certain objects in the game world, for example, there could be some fried turret controlls somewhere and only Takaka can fix it, or Hell just give her the Anti-EMP perk from Halo 4, something...
TL;DR : Halo 5s story is fucking shit and Brian Reed should be executed in a giant blender
UPDATE: Added Tanake
So I've finally come to grips with just how fucking godawful Halo 5s story is and I just felt like dumping my thoughts somewhere so here I go. I guess I'll list of points of everything about the story I hate, and Is a shame because interspersed within this mess are too many relay great moments completely eclipsed by shit or completely wasted potential. This is going to be a more rantty rough draft of something I hope to be more substantial someday so any input is appreciated. Ill fix the grammar and paragraph structure and shit later if it's fucked up.
Im going to try to steer clear of HUNTtheTRUTH and it's disconnect from Halo 5's story, since apparanlty is was conceived separately, so I guess it's not relay fair to judge and Ad campaign that was disconnected by nature, (Even though the point of an ad campaign is by nature supopsed to be relevant) although I may make a separate section for it.
Characters
Lets start of with the characters. The worst thing about them all is that every single character was, in a theory pretty interesting, and could have had so many dynamics that played into their interaction and arcs but so much if not all of it is completely squandered. Lets start with Locke shall we?
Locke
Nightfall wasn't very good but is set Locke up in an interesting way, his first encounter with a Spartan II (Randal) could have and was supposed to be a major impact on him. Witnessing Randal's leadership was supposed to have majorly influenced his view if what a Spartan was supposed to be. This could have played into so many things, especially his view of the Chief, but it literally never plays into anything, we don't even get to know what Locke's actual opinions on anything are.
One way they could have gone for example was having Locke comparing Chief to Randal, maybe idolizing Randal as sort of a gold standard for Spartans and Chief being a disgrace to that ideal. On the other hand the fact that both Chief and Randal are deserters, it could have instead given him some kind of sympathy for Chief, feeling that Spartan 2s would have a good reason for going AWOL and, thus leading him to want to learn the truth about what is going on.
Unfortunately nothing like that actually happens, instead we get a pretty boring drone of a character, who's only actual personality trait other than "follow orders" being his diplomatic nature which did actually carry over from Nightfall.
Buck/Thorne
Let's get this strait, Buck is only thrown in for fanservice. Now that does not take away from his very good established back story, he's still a great character outside of Halo 5, but the real reason he was put in was because they couldn't get Thorne's actor and they wanted the nostgiafags to shut the fuck up, if only for 30 seconds.
Speaking of Thorne let me go on a tangent briefly, because it was clear they were setting him up as a protagonist since Halo 4. In my personal opinion he could have been a great character to have had instead of Buck. Not because I don't like Buck, but because Thorne was set up as a character that would have worked well with Halo 5's basic premise. Thorne is shown to be particularly inquisitive and hold especial curiosity when It comes to the Spartan IIs. His backstory also in a way mirrors the Chief in that the Didact's attack on earth took loved ones from them. They are both traumatized from their losses and have pushed themselves to the extremes following as a result. (John taking missions nonstop and Thorne actually becoming a Spartan himself with the though that he could have saved his family if he was stronger) Throne not only had plenty of room to grow from this but it could have also given him a unique character dynamic with John.
But then again with how the game turned out, that would have probably been completely squandered as well, and he'd be about as big of a brick as Locke was.
Now onto Buck himself, Halo New Blood left Buck in a particularly good point to develop his character. After losing the Rookie, Dutch retiring, and Mickey's betrayal, Buck felt incompetent as a leader and thus stepped down from his leadership role. This could have have been used to great effect in developing him and potentially the other members of Osiris, especially since the are a new team after all. One example could be Buck questioning or challenging Locke's leadership, since he himself is still so used to being a leader. There's plently of ways i'm sure this could have been taken, but instead he as well as everyone else (exept for John I guess) remains completely static. And any chance they do have to explore his backstory is relegated to a few lines of Fanservice-y dialouge.
Wasted backstory is probably going to be the theme here so just bare with me.
Tanaka
Now Tanaka and Vale are the only two charachters who's backstories are actualy used and lent to the stories naratives but in tanaka's case in particular it is barely substantial. Her dialogue on Meridian was done ok. They ackgnowlaged her background of being from a glassed planet, and how it gave her a unique prspective on the glassed colony, but the problem is that is does not lend it'self to the narrative at large. Tanaka could have maybe felt bad for the residents urged the team to help people that may have been to far out of their way, or maybe her unique knowledge of glassed planets could have let her find some kind of quirk in the glassed terrain that could help them get around better. Or they could have her be the one primarily interacting with the citizens or Meridian, and have them be more open to her after hearing her background. Anything that had some sort of bearing to the story at large would be nice. Another thing that seemed underdeveloped was her apparent skills as an engineer. This is probably her most underdeveloped trait as a whole, even not counting Halo 5, we've never actualy seen her do anything regarding engineering, all she gets is like 3 feet extra on her motion tracker which is pretty underwhelming. They could have done something with it, gameplay-wise or story-wise. Maybe have her help fix some stuff on Meridian to gain their trust, or make her the only one who can activate certain objects in the game world, for example, there could be some fried turret controlls somewhere and only Takaka can fix it, or Hell just give her the Anti-EMP perk from Halo 4, something...
