Examining The End Of Halo 4
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- čas přidán 2. 07. 2024
- Midnight not only marks the end of Halo 4 but also 343 Industries’ maiden outing in charge of the Halo series’, with events finely poised as the campaign reaches its climax.
Will the Didact succeed in his quest to digitise every single human on Earth, or will Master Chief once again prevail is the big question in story terms, but the one we’re really here to answer during this video is: is Midnight a fitting conclusion to the beginning of what was a new era for Halo?
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#halo #halo4 #343
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Contents:
00:00 - Intro
00:28 - Broadsword Trench Run
06:09 - CoD In Halo Clothing
09:13 - The End Game
12:12 - Double Death
15:11 - Final Thoughts - Hry
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I forgot to mention the slight change with the legendary ending. Whoops.
Solid review of Halo 4's campaign, are you going to look at Spartan Ops at all? I kinda liked it despite it's problems.
My favorite line from Halo 4 is Lasky's: "Weapons, prepare firing solution! We promised to get the Chief on board that ship and I am not about let that man down!" Its not the most epic or intense line in the game, but everytime I hear it it makes me happy.
I'm not the biggest fan of the actual gameplay of the trench run, but the music, skybox and dialogue from Home Fleet and Lasky are definitely some the best parts of Halo 4.
Lasky is the homie
I do like the Didact's small arc of slowly respecting Chief more and more as the campaign progresses. He initially refers to him as simply "human" with a sense of disgust. Later, the disgust is gone, and he begins to be impressed by Chief's unyielding determination. Finally, when they meet at the end of this mission, he finally refers to Chief as "warrior". An equal.
If only the Didact could have been a recurring villain, rather than ending up in a comic and then a book.
Apparently he was on a redemption arc going with what you just said and the terminals.
My biggest issue with the Didact fight was that the Promethean grenade didn't work like it did the rest of the game. A grenade which I rarely used because of how bad it performed. If it only stuck to enemies like during that final 'fight' it would make it so much more viable
It only stuck because he wedged it in by hand. It wasn't that the grenade was sticky, and you can't do that by throwing one.
I’ve my issues with 4 but Cortana’s goodbye (even with 5 and Infinite) still brings a tear to my eye.
I remember tearing my hair out at the beginning broadsword run. The floor, walls, obstacles all same color and texture, excessive (bloom effects), and the slightest object causing you to explode if speeding up. Couple that with lack of checkpoints until very far in and walls constantly shifting into your path as gameplay...yeah
I don’t see any lens flares in any of the footage during the trench run…
Lens flares? You mean the excessive bloom post processing effects?
@@GymBossAniki yeah, that's the actual word I meant. My bad for confusion.
God forbid you try to play it in multiplayer.
These retrospectives on Halo 4's campaign have been great. I hadn't given the gameplay of these levels much thought, but your analyses really made me realize WHY I feel what I feel about them.
Looking forward to Halo 5!
"Story-wise, the series really could have gone somewhere based on what unfolds during the campaign." Oh how much I wish that would have been the case with the 343 trilogy. The lack of cohesion is an absolute tragedy.
*_"Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, 'It might have been.'"_*
The only things I remember from this game are crushing boredom and vague disgust. The sheer grind of gameplay caused me to pretty much overlook all the brilliant atmosphere and decent character work you mentioned and just focus on finishing the game as quickly as possible. I subsequently put the game back in its case, placed it on the shelf, and never picked it up again. I mourn what could have, should have, been.
i did a heroic run first and it sucked. than i did the legendary run and hated every single minute and was done with 343
I think the only reason they brought back Cortana in halo 5 was that they received a lot of backlash from Cortana dying in 4.
To this day, even with my point of view and critique softening torwards this title, i still think that removing chief's helmet at the end was one if not the biggest mistake 343 did with the franchise
The fact that Chief took it off at all, or that the Legendary ending (kind of) showed his face?
Removing Chief's helmet, having Del Rio be an unnecessary a-hole, killing Cortana then bringing her back as the villain only to kill her again off-screen, making Guardian space-birds that turn everything off inexplicably, leaving Atriox out of most of Infinite, retconning Humanity being related to the Forerunners, letting the Halo tv show be made... But 343's biggest mistake IMO was bringing Chief and Cortana back at all; Halo 3 gave a perfect ending to their story, they should've focused on other characters and just left Chief floating in space MIA forever like a legend.
@@alaskamark4562 Technically, floating forever in space was never an option. The mysterious planet that became Requiem was in Halo 3's Legendary ending, and I think the Halo 3 terminals were hinting at Mendicant Bias having something to do with where Chief was sent. There was always room intentionally left for another story.
Two things:
At least it was a legendary ending so it felt somewhat earned and again, they only showed his eyes.
Man, I was so disappointed when the Didact was just beaten so easily. I really liked him and thought he had crazy potential, feel like they could have even potentially based the story of Halo 5 around him or even just a notoriously difficult battle with him at the end of halo 4 would’ve satisfied me. I just couldn’t believe a villain hyped up to be so powerful, barely seen through the game, then when finally seeing him again he goes down so easily. Just a damn shame 😐
The ending was obviously unsatisfying, but even then, if Halo 5 had gone through with the Didact, then Halo 4 would have been a proper setup. Because, we see the Didact fall, but without any further explanation, loads of things could have happened. Even digitized into the domain, he could have been brought back in so many ways...
When I first played Halo 4, I was severely let down by not being able to actually fight the Didact. Boss fights rarely went well in Halo games, but this one needed to happen. It's similar to Atriox in Halo Wars 2 and Infinite. There is no real resolution, and it makes the ending distinctly unsatisfying. Of course, Halo 5 took that lesson to heart. Too much to heart, really. At least it showed that 343 were aware of the feedback.
I think that pretty much everyone will agree that Cortana needed to stay dead. Halo 5 had many problems, but Cortana was surely one of the worst. In retrospect, there were still plenty of options in Halo 5 for a new enemy and story, instead of...well, what we got.
"press x to kill didact" is a fucking hilarious way to end the game and I'm honestly disappointed the prompt doesn't outright say that word for word.
woulda been a nice call back to the start of the game too with that elite in the elevator shaft
Also that ironically feels more like traditional master chief
The gameplay may have been lackluster and full of poor choices, but tbe story was incredible, the music is beautiful, and the atmosphere is amazing.
Halo 4 wasn't bad, it was nust 343's first foray into creating their own Halo game. Full of great ideas, but mired by poor decisions. I agree, it's a good first person shooter, just not a good Halo game.
Honestly, H4 would have been a good starting point, story aside I'd say it's just a mid game.
A poor COD clone. But with the feedback they had, the team of writers. It'd have been a great starting point for Halo 5, but then the entire team left. And then they brought in Brian Reed
BEN YOU STINKY BOY!!! How can you not mention Green and Blue!?!? It's my favorite Master Chief Halo track.
Anyway, super looking forward to Halo 5. I remember liking it gameplay wise, but I don't really remember anything about the story other than it was trying to make a new plotline to lead into Halo 6 but Infinite ignored all that.
Honestly I really like the broadsword run.
Sure it isn't as replayable as the warthog runs, but the main goal is that it serves as an inversion to the warthog runs of old.
Chief lost already, it happens at the start, and has him running into danger. It really makes everything feel like an actua risk, that chief actually will die here.
exactly
also the inversion of ce and 3 having you run away from a forerunner structure about to explode vs the broadsword run having you run into a forerunner structure to cause it to explode
also having it at the end of the mission would have ruined the pacing imo
Yes, I think it sets up the level perfectly, the same way a beach landing/invasion sequence does. You're going in full force to put an end to the didact.
Perhaps the game could be improved if the final section was timed, but you were given more powerful weapons/shields to eliminate the hordes of enemies, thus getting the pacing back and ending the game with a challenge, since the quicktime is more like a cutscene. That could probably be modded into the game.
This mission teaches us how to deal with loss in some ways, and to accept sometimes that to win, we have to lose - I love the quicktime event, which I know is a hot take, but when Chief is staring up at Earth, where you are given time to hold the nuke, and press the button that he expects will kill him, he's looking up and possibly thinking of his fellow Spartan Sam, Johnson, so many others who died to give one last final effort towards pushing the best of humanity forward. That part of him holding the nuke and the option to press it sits in a pit in my stomach similar to "Survive," and "There'll be Another time" in Reach. And you're absolutely correct that Arrival and 117 are STUNNING audio pieces for the climatic showdown, even if the gameplay didn't match the story. I will say personally that Halo 4 has grown on me. I didn't like Cortana's handling personally - we had just saved her from the Gravemind, and to lose her again felt...off. But I've come around to realizing that it actually sort of made sense. Life does that - it makes you think you won, only to take your prize when you feel you're "home again." Chief gets home, but loses his companion he barely was able to spend time with after rescuing her and falling asleep. It's tragic. Shakespearean even. I'll end by saying that the Didact has one of the most epic quotes that gets me fired up on a bad day, and it's in this level: " *You persist too long after your own defeat. Come then, warrior, have your resolution.* "
Thanks Ben for a yet again fantastic video.
As usual your voice is amazing,the calmness i get from listening to you is the real deal.
Well done on completing Halo 4 analysis!
Glad you called out the amazing atmosphere. I totally agree. I’ve played 117 and Arrival again and again. When people downcast Halo 4’s soundtrack, I agree it’s not Halo, but it is great. The final cutscene between Chief and Cortana and then Lasky is excellent. Easily two in the best scenes of all of Halo
The character writing in 4 is definitely the biggest highlight IMO. Bungie was always way more plot-focused with characterization falling secondary to the big story, which is not a bad thing. 4's approach where plot and characters fall hand-in-hand was definitely refreshing and had some moments that just hit hard and have stuck with me since. "She said that to me once.......about being a machine....." That line lives rent-free in my head. A shame that all the good 343i did in 4 was thrown away with 5.
Great job as always Ben. I enjoyed this deep dive into H4. Excited for your takes on Halo 5!
Arrival is imho the best sound track across the whole franchise and would stand alone as a tune in its own right
I really enjoyed halo 4’s campaign, getting to pilot a ship for the time with obstacles was really groundbreaking at time, and getting to kill the Didact with a grenade and destroying the Didact’s ship with a nuke was really cool, getting to say goodbye to Cortana was absolutely perfect!🙂
hell considering truth was killed in a mid mission cutscene by a character demoted to “player 2”, being able to actually press a button and he involved in the didact’s defeat is an improvement imo
Solid analysis of Halo 4, Ben!!, Thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not without its flaws, but I do genuinely love this game!! ❤ and you definitely gave the game it's dues!!
Looking forward to the next round of videos!! ☺️☺️
I think Halo 4 is more about a story than the game. It could have been a movie rather than a game. Cut scenes were top tier. Cortana comeback in Halo 5 does make sense, gravemind did a number on her which is what corrupted her.
Chief and Cortana showed us that love between AI and man is a-OK. I would bet that after some people say this scene, they thought "yup, living AI is norm"
I suppose Halo 4 is a decent shooter, but it's certainly not a *great* shooter. People have harped to much on H4 being too different, but I think people easily would have accepted it if the quality was high, and I just think it isn't.
Then again, I don' think Call of Duty has good campaigns, and I'd go so far as even legendary games like Half Life 2 suffers from feeling like a bunch of disparate ”gimmicks” built together (at least to some extent, I say this having enjoyed HL2 back in the day). Halo was always different in that it just had *really good fundamentals* and the meat and potatoes of the game was the encounters itself. The only game I think succeeds similarly in this is the original Doom from 1993. And I think Halo 4 suffers from similar problems… and it makes it not only not a great Halo game, it makes it not a great FPS.
Anyway, great video! Again, thanks for making these. I've kinda fallen off playing Halo in the last few months (finally fell off Infinite, for the first time since it released), but I love this vids and I kinda keep my interest in Halo alive through them. :)
no matter how much i dislike this game, that scene of chief detonating the nuke will always give me goosebumps
The final glance at earth and the absolute determination of chief to protect humanity at any cost
Ben how do you feel about 343 showing Chief’s eyes in the Legendary ending?
I love your little films and iv played little Halo.
"the only correct choice is ranged wespons, i tried using the gravity hammer but"
But nothing. On legendary the hammer feels like the only viable option.
Ugh, my autistic inability to read subtext rears its head yet again. I completely missed that the starting Broadsword section was an homage to Star Wars’ trench run, and now that it’s pointed out it’s completely obvious.
halo 4 is obviously the beginning of the end for halo as we loved. however the lore of the forerunners, ancient humanity, precursors, and the flood from the novels are some of the best things to ever happen to halo in my opinion. it’s the coolest sci fi story in all of fiction for me
It's a slog, gameplay wise. The final interaction between Cortana and Chief is just how it should be. Cheers for goin through this game again. You're our Spartan!
Halo 3 was the last Halo game chronologically, but Reach was in fact the last Halo game. We must move on, number company simply can't handle this franchise.
I haven't replayed Halo 4 yet, so I can't say how it feels on replays, but I absolutely love the space segment of this level. Sure it's not the deepest gameplay the game has to offer, but as a setpiece it's amazing, with my favorite soundtrack and visuals in the game (that arrival at earth... damn!). Also I'm a big space battle and star wars nerd, so... there's that. I wish they commited to that and made the whole level a space battle. I guess it wouldn't have been very "Halo" but at least it would have made it memorable. I agree about how it could have been improved gameplaywise.
The rest was super underwhelming. I didn't remember much besides how anticlimactic that QTE was.
Do you plan on checking out the Halo Wars games?
I like this level
I have to respectfully disagree with the assertion that CE and 3's Warthog runs were in any way less linear or had more freedom of movement than the Broadsword run. They're far more visually appealing to be sure, but "you can be on the left side of the room instead of the right" and "you can get out of your vehicle to see an easter egg before immediately dying" aren't enough to put them over this sequence. I would say in terms of gameplay, all three are on the same level.
Agree. I’ve done the Broadsword run multiple times at max boost throughout (except for one section I haven’t figured out how to do without dropping boost) and you generally have 3 or 4 distinct ‘lanes’ you can be taking at any given time. IMO, it’s as complex a track as the run on The Maw, with the lessened complexity of actually controlling the Broadsword being replaced with the complex course.
Oh that ship run 😅 and that QTE 😂
I swear, correct me if I am wrong....are the only two QTEs in the game, at the beginning and the end?
I always wondered, sure the composer had a shield, but you are inside the ship, surely Chief would nuke the ship, then the composer would fall to earth or drift in space?
Great video, Ben. Missed your videos as of late 😊
Yeah it's quite ironic how the game begins with a QTE and ends with one.
@@Erinxh Like QTEs can be good when done well. But why put them in a game if there is literally only two haha
Cortana removed the shield
@thedead073 No, I got that part. I meant more they were inside the ship, so Chief could have just nuked the ship from the inside and even if the composer was shielded, something would have happened with the destruction of the ship.
The ending with the main villain is mid for me, the ending with Cortana is far better when it comes to emotion and their relationship they had all this time, the didact was for me just filler bad guy to put in the story to make it seem better, they definitely had the means to make him more interesting but I guess not
Yeah it isn't my favorite mission at all. It would be like killing tartarus by pressed B. Or guilty spark.
It's weird to me how this level opens with the best track on the OST, then the actual climax of the game before you get to the Didact has the most generic video game "epic" music in the series. Every part on foot in Midnight is super underwhelming.
My feeling is that halo 4 was kinda unpolished (in terms if level and enemy design) and they where trying to find their own identity. A halo 5 that worked on the right corners building things from this foundation as well as inspiration from the bungie era could have been good.
Interestingly a friend of mine who played the mcc collection (just once) said to me that halo 4 was his favorite of the bunch. So i guess it worked for some audience good enough.
By the time this level came around, i'd already lost any investment in the game or prospect of sequels. It was pretty forgettable from the get go and i've never felt a need to return
Edit: You did call it early though, 343 taking Master Chief and Cortana's friendship into a weird, psuedo romantic direction was wildly out of character for both them and the tone of the series
Halo 4 was a good shooter but it didn't feel like halo in a weird way
Because It wasn't, I would even go as far as saying "halo" 4 borders more on fantasy than anything sci-fi, and in my opinion that indicates it should or was likely meant to be a different IP altogether.
Halo 4 wasn't a terrible game. But it didn't feel like Halo.
I know I’m a courageous hero for saying something so bold, but I think the original trilogy was better.
The original was actually Halo. I for one, do not regard 343's "work" to be the same franchise
@@thetower8553 i wouldnt mind them doing a reboot.... of the 343 trilogy and pretend halo 4/5 never happened
My most hated aequence in Halo as a whole. This isnt a "trench run" series and it forced me to replay it over and over to learn the pattern of the moving pieces and sudden turrets. Memorizing a level/enemy pattern is antithical to the series.
To
Oohhh right the Star Fox level, so original
another comment to please the algorithm
I don't see the sandstorm
I can't stand the forerunner architecture and ship designs in the 343 games. Really reminiscent of the moving pillars of death in Galaxy Quest
Oh yes.