My new playthrough is slowly progressing. Just finished act 1 as I was focusing on “easier” jobs (fit to role-playing my current character) and simply enjoying the city.
I haven’t stumbled upon any difficulty spikes that would make me question what I’m doing which is a positive sign. We’ll see how things go now that I got to the “real game”. Before I jump into the proper playthrough however I still have a little bit of a set up to perform - purely role-playing adjacent things, not something affecting the game story or anything like that. That’s actually the more interesting part of playing RPGs for me and the reason why I rarely bother with main stories in series like (3D) Fallout or The Elder Scrolls. Playing a hero is neat by cosplaying as a normal part of the world is way more interesting for me.

I didn’t expect to play this any time soon but since I managed to catch The Master Chief Collection on a 75% sale I decided to pull the trigger. Why Reach? I wanted to play the games in chronological order, simple as that. Well… mostly, as I won’t be pausing H2 for ODST for example. Still, the core idea is there. Game holds up really well both graphically and in terms of gameplay. I do think the space flight missions were some of the worst gameplay segments I played in years but other than that it’s great. I wish I went into the story completely blind but even despite that it manages to convey the emotions really well. One thing I forgot about (and really appreciate) is the ability to customise your Noble 6 - it’s a small thing but it does a lot to make the character feel mine. It also makes me wish future Halo games moved away from the Master Chief and focused on other, less exceptional characters. There’s so much potential for drama, tension and even horror like segments if only we got to see the world from the eyes of normal(ish) people. It could be neat.
I just think that MC really limits the storytelling potential at this point - with him at the helm devs have to come up with more and more out there reasons for yet another world ending catastrophe instead of writing more human and personal tales. That’s just something I’m personally interested in though, I’m not sure if the general public would be interested in this kind of Halo game.

I played the original PC release years ago so I expected this to be mostly a refresher - boy was it. I completely forgot A LOT of the actual levels (except for caves not being a natural formation) so it feels more like a new experience than expected. I feel like they did a pretty good job upgrading the graphics for this title, I keep switching between the two modes and while the OG art looks neat, it’s also pretty freaking dark and drab a lot of the time (in a bad way). Difficulty wise the game feels a bit harder than Reach, despite playing both games on Heroic difficulty - I think some of it has to do with absolute trash enemy spawn points (so many spawns right behind you, in places that were empty when checked, it’s not even funny) but I’m not going to use it as an excuse for all of my problems. I also have harder time trying to keep an eye on my HP by that’s just general mind goblins making me distracted rather than game’s fault. It’s still really fun overall, but I do have two things I’m not too fond of. The first one are the long sections of the same corridors (as in literally copy and pasted sections with minimal adjustments) on certain maps. They actually remind me of ONI, another Bungie title from that era. I won’t say Halo didn’t improve on that aspect but some parts are almost just as big and empty as the ones in that game, making them the worst part of the experience.
The second “issue” are the 343 Guilt Sparks videos you can find hidden on each level - I understand their purpose but I don’t find them particularly interesting to watch. Marathon (I think?) data pads from Reach were much cooler, even if I found them to be a bit difficult to parse at times - there’s something about how they’re written that just shuts down my brain so I end up having to read some of them multiple times before things click. Last but not least: the flood. I remember this level being pretty unnerving in the past but playing it now I can’t help but see them as easily kiteable silly little goobers. There was zero tension this time, only routine. Oh well.