Subscribe: ruclips.net/user/BenPlaysGames Support the channel: www.patreon.com/ben_plays_games A legitimately excellent level even when being compared to Bungie's work.
Del Rio always gets me because his frustration with Chief makes no sense and almost feels forced. His issue with Chief comes off like he views Chief as this old man that can't keep up anymore or is a relic of his time. Chief hasn't been "off the field for a while." Halo 3 from Chief's perspective was essentially yesterday! Imagine a war hero from only 7 years ago shows up after dissapearing, hasn't aged a day and a commander thinks "nah he's too old and doesn't get what we do now."
I don’t think it’s because he thinks Chief is “old” but rather that it’s a different war with a new enemy: the Forerunners. To him, his ship just got sucked into a strange new forerunner planet so he wants to leave ASAP while Chief seems to only care about fighting the Didact. Of course, as a navy captain I don’t imagine he’s privy to everything ONI knows or even the fact that Chief has that connection to the Librarian & other forerunner stuff. So ofc the audience knows that Chief is more equipped to deal with the current situation, it’s just that Del Rio doesn’t know that
That said, he was still super arrogant & completely lacked the faith that others like Lasky had in Chief & Cortana (even as she neared the end of her life)
Bro, you have the Infinity, which is humanity's largest ship, under your command. Your super ship has been completely punished by a new enemy. A enemy whose real capabilities he don't know. Chief knew, but Del Rio didn't know and didn't want to risk the ship. It's justifiable. Who hasn't understood this to this day have a serious lack of interpretation. It's not calling Chief "old" because he's old
I'm so surprised people are defending Del Rio as justified. The guy immediately implies Chief is vulnerable, and is incredibly annoyed he has to explain to Chief and Cortana their findings on other installations. And right after his close encounter with the Didact, he sends a single company on an assault through unknown territory with no recon against an unknown enemy and gets pissy when Chief simply asks what the terrain is like. The only reason the plan works is Chief sets off on foot by himself. It's not a lack of my understanding because what happens when Del Rio gets to earth? Fleetcom immediately relieves him of command for abandoning the Chief and puts Lasky in charge! Del Rio is just so antagonistic to Master Chief from minute one and the way its written always comes off as odd to me.
@@johnmiller2247so in other words people litreally told you why Del Rio is the way he is and you go "nuh uh" becouse "Del Rio bad" is the common consensus.
13:40 A sense of mystery is one of the best ways to fascinate an audience with one's world and story, but it's a double edged sword. Eventually, a lack of answers becomes boring and people lose interest. I've noticed that finding the balance between world building and maintaining that captivating sense of mystery is a very common problem for franchises as they age.
110% agreed. Perhaps they could have hinted at more info about the Flood (thanks for allllllll the research the Forerunners had done on the Flood, and therefore makes sense their study notes would be found) and certainly about the Covenant, but they really should have left the Forerunners themselves a mystery left unknown. And the whole predestination/genetic planning thing of humanity is just weird and necessary. I always thought it was cooler to imagine that the ancient Forerunners were indeed humans and that humanity itself was set back by something (this is where the original firing of the rings could come into play). I was so disappointed to find out that it was just aliens, and that the aliens were petty, and that they can just throw around genetic modifications here and there, and that master chief himself is some Chosen One figure.
Honestly, the Forerunners from 343 are are one of the coolest, most unique species in Sci-Fi that I've read. I've been playing Halo since CE, and I thought the who mystery of the Forerunners got kinda boring after Halo 3. It's why I unironically love the terminals from halo 3 as they were the first glimpse into this unexplored race
God I love Del Rio. Nothing better than a higher up who, 1: doesn't care, and 2: has clearly consistently failed upwards. He's such a fun secondary antagonist, and in a way, he is kind of right about Cortana. She is a liability.
They did a good job of really expressing his character too. From the way his eyelids flutter before snapping at Chief to the way his voice is calm right before screaming "arrest that man!" Everyone else in 4 feels flat so even though Del Rio is designed to be hated he's awesome
Man oh man if only they knew what she would do in Halo 5. Del RIo should slap Chiefs cheeks. You guys are right. Del Rio was probably the best character in 4. Laskey was boring, the old woman that got composed was boring. The librarian was ugly. Cortana was nice. real nice.
The section where you walk into the forerunner structure was actually awe inspiring for me. That blue lighting was/is awesome in my opinion. I liked Installation00s interpretation saying it looks that way because it’s “Warrior Servant” architecture instead of the “Builder” architecture you see in the other games. Great vid as always 🔥🔥
The last section was easily my favorite. Being able to tackle the section however the player wants is so welcoming. It's Halo at its finest and I'm glad for it. And finally getting a proper tank section was very enjoyable to experience.
Not gonna lie i'd like to see you take a look at some of the footage thats popped up recently regarding the 2011 prototypes of Halo 4. The gameplay and level design in general is alot different. For example for this misson, you would not use a teleporter to exit back out onto the next section. You would be greeted by the mammoth again (with volumetric foglights), infinity looming in directly overhead, and pelicans appearing from the cloud cover to drop off hogs. The target locator would also only call in missiles like in reach, the MAC had to be used manually.
I guess if any of the post-Reach levels were gonna get a repeat video, it would be this one. I'll admit, I've often felt like Bungie and 343 Halo shouldn't be that different in theory; they both have clear paths you're *meant* to go down, but like you said, Bungie uses those wider areas more. Even playing 4 for the first time, I could feel the differences. Not quite related, but I remembered not even realizing I could sprint until about halfway through Midnight. XD
i read the forerunner trilogy before playing halo 4. so the terminals were a great addition to the lore i was already familiar with. hated how halo 4 treated the didact. he should have been the main the villain across 343s whole trilogy
Thing is, halo 4 forerunner desing isnt overdone and all that stuff, its just working and alive If you turn off all lights, including all those "RGB STRIPS" ok the walls, doors and floors, its OG forerunner style, Halo CE looks, its just that now its working, its on, its been used, let alone the fact thats forerunner rooms ON A SHIELD WORLD not a ring, so even then theyre kinda gonna look different
He made a community post about, here's the text: "I've reworked my two-year old video on Reclaimer from the ground up, with a completely new script that is a lot more detailed (especially regarding the level's story beats) and far higher audio/video quality"
I did, a couple of years ago. But with the recent Halo 4 videos, it's the first time I've been writing each script consecutively with the plan of combining them (I never initially thought I'd try to cover every Halo level), so wanted to rewrite it so its fits better with the other recent pieces. Also, the voiceover quality needed improving and I wanted to bring the resolution up to 4K for longevity's sake. Some day (not for a good while), I'm going to go back and remaster all the other Ultimate Critiques with 4K footage and a few other tweaks, so they'll still be good quality wise for a long time.
@@BenPlaysGames I appreciate these retakes, unless I'm misremembering the analysis is new, fresh and often better as well (more important than the production values to me at least, 1080p is plenty for video games imo).
I think a better way the lore dump couldve been handled is enviromental story telling. Like we could have seen mysterious glyphs on the wall which seems to point at forerunners fighting humans, or a code which looks like humans with the promethians.. That way weve already got half the mystery in our head and were already getting the feeling that the promethians are humans and something happened in the past between humans and forerunners. That way most of what the librarian says is more recognisable and less overwhealming.
Reclaimer is a really good level, but honestly I think I prefer a couple of Halo 5 levels (the sanghelios ones) and a few from Infinite a bit more. Reclaimer is definitely the best from 4 though
This was, above all else, an interesting level that did peak my curiosity, especially with the implementation of the Mammoth and boarding the new Lich. However, I haven't played a more boring mission since getting lost in Halo CE if i missed a single pathfinding light or signal like the arrows.
Reclaimer is proof of famine, not feast. It shows 343 was perfectly capable of capturing the halo spirit since the beginning, but chose not to for one reason or another. What a fucking shame. At least whenever I play through all the games, I can look forward to Reclaimer and the two levels on Sanghelios in halo 5 after I finish reach.
It probably is their best level, which is kind of sad. The one thing that I hate about this mission is when you blow up one of the phantoms earlier on before the lich part. It soft locks the game. The lich won't blow up.
@@idkanameimnotthatcreative7456 I've tried that trick a few times and could never get it to work. I will have to try that. Been a while since I've played H4. I've been addicted to halo 2 recently.
I don't think I noticed Halo 4 had other spartans outside cutscenes until you talked about them in a previous video (i 2024)… so yeah, count me among those who thought they where souped up soldiers. Oh and that dialog line from Cortana. I think I've mentioned this before, but this hits like a ton of bricks for me ever since I gradually lost someone very close to me due to severe mental illness. I saw this person fighting the darkness in them (and even had a conversation that it's not too unlike this one). It was harrowing to experience, but it's beautiful to see it captures so well here. The writing is great and Jen Taylors delivery is nothing short of incredible. Agree som much regarding equipment. Halo Infinite campaign at times feels more like Doom Eternal because so much of Infinite is designed always having access to the grapple. This leads to you on higher difficulties to *always* use this grapple all the time which honestly doesn't feel very Halo like to me. Contrast this with multiplayer where you *sometimes* have equipment, which feels great. As for the story, it is great in the Forerunner novels, but just doesn't work in the game. They should have just had references to it as easter eggs for hardcore fans (like the terminals in Halo 3 that inspired those books). They should have completely focused on the Cortana plot instead. Oh, the best level 343 ever made is Pelican Down, though you made me appreciate that H4 does have at least a couple of good levels. Thanks for the video as always! Great stuff!
Infinity was the best level. It introduced the mantis, has a full tank section, and has a decent on foot section, all of which changes from lush alien Jungle, Damp caverns, a crash site in an open vally, and both an internal and external boarding action environment.
I think of the story of halo 4 similar to the prequels in Star Wars. A fantastic story that was executed poorly. If you actually took the time to immerse yourself in the lore and story, it’s fantastic. If you wanna just be told a simple self contained story while enjoying a fun game, it’s awful.
Reclaimer is a favorite of mine. I remember i would replay it a lot as a kid. I think something that would of been interesting is if we could select which particle cannon to destory and the mamonth would go to their. It definitely would have been to much for the 360. But having the choice of which way you want to complete the objective would have been interesting
I'm on the side of liking Del Rio. I do think he's not a great character but what he does do I think is good. I mean, being a good character in 343i Hall, isn't a high bar. I like the Cortana rampancy and the give me the chip scene. Very good and his scene in the intro cutscene is demanding and really makes you hate the guy immediately.
As a game only fan of Halo who has never read any of the books or knows anything about the extended lore, plus as a fan of the Bungie games growing up in the early 2000s, and being in my late teens once Halo 4 came out, I loved Halo 4. The lore dump as you say, was welcomed in my case. I always wanted to know more about the Forerunners ever since they were mentioned in Halo CE. So because you fight them in H4, the background lore was an awesome addition. Personally, when it comes to H4 specifically, I think fans were primarily mad it wasn't Bungie any more, and are likely the types who also cried that sprint was a core ability. So H4 I'll defend forever. H5 and Infinite on the other hand...
4 was… okay. I liked having sprint, it felt much closer to how Spartans perform in lore, but the story was iffy. That said, iffy is galaxies superior to 5.
@@bigdoubleu117 Because it squandered its potential. 4’s story could have been spun out into its own trilogy; if it had been, I think it the 343 games might have been on par with the original trilogy. Instead, they made the Didact, an honest-to-god Forerunner, into a one-game villain who was killed in a comic strip. “Missed opportunities” doesn’t even begin to cover it. That’s Halo 4’s sin: it should have been more.
@@PhoenixT70 Future issues can't retroactively make H4 bad. I agree 343 loves killing off their villains off screen for some reason, and that's really stupid of them, but H4 as it's own story, is good.
@@bigdoubleu117 Even if we disregard the comic, they killed the Didact (who should have been a threat to rival the Covenant) in a single game. That is disappointing. The Didact could have been another Prophet of Truth, the leader of an enormously powerful enemy faction-maybe a new Covenant, maybe just a rebranded Ecumene. Instead, he’s basically a glowing Batman villain with a cartoonishly evil plan. 4 should have been great. The character growth between Chief and Cortana is genuinely touching and beautifully acted; the way they interact in 4 is actually my favorite portrayal of the two in all of Halo because it turns Chief into a genuine character. Sadly, the larger story those scenes are built around is rushed beyond all reason. As a stand-alone game, Halo 4 is okay. As part of a series, as the setup for a new trilogy, as 343’s first Halo title, it is insufficient and served only as the harbinger of worse titles to come.
It’s sad to see all these good ideas and intentions that could’ve been improved upon, only to have Halo 5 and Infinite throw the baby out with the bathwater.
343’s approach to the Forerunner’s story in this game is bizarre. It seems like they initially wanted the Didact’s nature to be unveiled through the terminals, then had to put in this massive info dump when it occurred to them that most players would skip them (and considering you needed a third party app that was janky at best to view them in vanilla Halo 4…). And even then, you need Silentium ( a 300 page hard sci fi heavy read that came out several months after Halo 4) to get any real depth out of his turn on a dime from grimly pragmatic general to axe crazy Sith Lord wannabe.
To me this mission only showed why the rest of the game wasn't more open. The downgrades to enemy AI routines were obvious enough in the linear segments, but it becomes extraordinarily annoying in the open arena and vehicle sections. Combine it all with a fairly boring sandbox, obnoxious sound direction and general pacing issues (the Mammoth especially is way too slow) and you get a terrible experience. Is it the best H4 can offer? Maybe. It's certainly the most memorable. But an interesting concept can not save it from Halo 4's structural and gameplay problems.
I don’t mind learning more about the Forerunners, I think it’s a natural progression of the story to try and understand them further, I just wish they’d have been more akin to what Bungie imagined them to be; properly mysterious and more aloof, truly almost god-like. 343 making them basically no different to prehistoric humans was a huge blow to the mystery of them. And while I do enjoy the concept that ancient Humanity went to war against them and lost, I just don’t know that it truly fits into the larger picture all that well, especially with the glaring plot hole that the only reason for the conflict was Humanity entering Forerunner space while retreating from The Flood; you’d have thought that a simple communication to the Forerunners to warn them of the greater threat would’ve pushed them to form an alliance. And I completely agree with your assessment on the whole gene song thing, it was so unnecessary to have Humanity’s progress be preordained, and it really detracts from how truly intelligent people like Halsey are supposed to be to have created Mjölnir and the Spartans. But also what was the purpose of the Librarian planning that out? How did she know the Didact would awaken? Humanity woke the Didact, so does that mean she also planned that out and then built a plan to defeat him? It just makes no sense and feels incredibly tacked on. One of the things that made Bungie’s games great was that Humanity felt almost believable in some sense, that 500 years from now we could probably be traveling the stars with super-soldiers on the very cutting edge of science, and just barely holding our own against some random aliens. Then 343 took over and the power creep went to the next level, now everybody’s a super soldier, everything has Forerunner tech in it, the Didact has a device that can literally digitize entire cities to steal the essence of a person and yet somehow we’re supposed to believe he wouldn’t wipe the floor with the UNSC fleet. It’s all just weird. The only good story 343 have ever told is that of the connection between Chief and Cortana in 4, everything else just doesn’t fit.
Could you please record holotapes detailing the spooky horror of the Museum of Witchcraft in Fallout 4, the Glowing Sea shack bunker and Sentinel Site? Ad Victoriam Scribe Ben.
Everything about halo 4’s level design is new and fresh! The ambition that halo 3 had with environments was turned up to 11! everything is action based which is something that I very much enjoyed! Every environment is insanely detailed, and insanely ambitious! Every level has something new to offer! The ghost run is insane, and I love it! Driving a ship while going through tough obstacles is something that I’ll never forget! Driving a pelican for the first time is still something that blows my mind! I always thought the engine in halo 4 was very insane back on the Xbox 360, and it still is!
Halo 5 did have some good missions. But everything else about it was just god awful. The art design in particular. Oh, and the story. Threw us a curve ball with Locke. I didn't read the books so I had no idea what was going on. Just like Infinite and Halo 4. Reading the books is 1000 percent necessary for 343 games.
I miss the days when Master Chief was just a kick-A super soldier and not "The Chosen One". A lot of people love the Forerunner lore in Halo, but my own take is that they would have benefitted in keeping the mysticism in the mystery/unknown category rather than in some sort of "chosen one" pseudoscience category. Halo CE was epic not because of how much alien/ancient lore we knew, but how much we DIDN'T know. The Flood is certainly, and hints about their origins would be fun to sprinkle here and there - but we should have left the Forerunners much, MUCH more shrouded in mystery and unknown. oh well.
Halo 4 is a game 11 years after Halo 1, the thing about the Forerunners being mysterious is completely boring, plus the fact that the chief is treated as the chosen one is nothing more than another name for "luck". simply canonical explanation of its plot armor.
@@spartanjohn-1176the mystery is only boring if it remains the focus but by removing the mystery you take away that element entirely. I agree that the series needed to pivot, but 343 took the entirely wrong route in my opinion. If you’re going to take a key characteristic away from the series you should probably compensate in some way. And chief isn’t just treated as a chosen one, thats not new, now he literally is one which is much less interesting. Luck is ambiguous while forerunner evolutionary genetic engineering is very on the nose
@@COMDStudios Not at all, the writing is correct, you cannot take seriously someone who thinks that something has to be silent or not have any information to be interesting. Go back to 2001, in this era no one is interested in flat characters or things.
@@spartanjohn-1176 didn’t say it was the only way but it is one way to garner intrigue or interest. It’s interesting that you are against flat characters when I feel like that’s what this expanded lore turned the characters into
no lol this level is easily better than 90% of the og halo levels. I will not name halo ce because it is unfair due to the difference in technology, but all the levels in halo 2 lose and "the Covenant and the ark" are not the only levels that exist in halo 3
The only thing 343 or Bungi will EVER get right, is having a wraith gunner die faster than the pilot. Seriously I can kill an elite Zealot out of the pilot seat but a GRUNT is still alive in the gunner seat
Until I saw this video, I would have said that this level was one of the worst parts of Halo 4. It felt like a slow escort mission to me, with narrative that fumbled in all the ways that he described in the video. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think the reason I remember this level as bad is because I don't remember most of the levels of H4 at all and really disliked the game on the whole, so I must have just blocked out all the other levels in my mind.
I feel like you've talked about every halo level to the fullest extent by this point. Not saying that it's bad to keep doing these videos, but it's a bit repetitive.
The effects of this mission were so low-quality and the mission on a quality level felt poorly done. Those covenant cruisers way off in the distance? Watch them and you can see the Infinity go through them when it approaches. The explosion of the canon looks like crap, Halo 3 had better "big thing exploding" effects. The explosion of the covenant ship also looks terrible. In general, H4's explosion effects were bad compared even to Halo 3.
Your criticisms are illogical. Halo 4 is a graphically heavier and more detailed game than Halp 3, obviously there is going to be a decrease in the effects so that the Xbox 360 can handle it.
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A legitimately excellent level even when being compared to Bungie's work.
Del Rio always gets me because his frustration with Chief makes no sense and almost feels forced. His issue with Chief comes off like he views Chief as this old man that can't keep up anymore or is a relic of his time. Chief hasn't been "off the field for a while." Halo 3 from Chief's perspective was essentially yesterday! Imagine a war hero from only 7 years ago shows up after dissapearing, hasn't aged a day and a commander thinks "nah he's too old and doesn't get what we do now."
I don’t think it’s because he thinks Chief is “old” but rather that it’s a different war with a new enemy: the Forerunners. To him, his ship just got sucked into a strange new forerunner planet so he wants to leave ASAP while Chief seems to only care about fighting the Didact.
Of course, as a navy captain I don’t imagine he’s privy to everything ONI knows or even the fact that Chief has that connection to the Librarian & other forerunner stuff. So ofc the audience knows that Chief is more equipped to deal with the current situation, it’s just that Del Rio doesn’t know that
That said, he was still super arrogant & completely lacked the faith that others like Lasky had in Chief & Cortana (even as she neared the end of her life)
Bro, you have the Infinity, which is humanity's largest ship, under your command. Your super ship has been completely punished by a new enemy. A enemy whose real capabilities he don't know. Chief knew, but Del Rio didn't know and didn't want to risk the ship. It's justifiable. Who hasn't understood this to this day have a serious lack of interpretation. It's not calling Chief "old" because he's old
I'm so surprised people are defending Del Rio as justified. The guy immediately implies Chief is vulnerable, and is incredibly annoyed he has to explain to Chief and Cortana their findings on other installations. And right after his close encounter with the Didact, he sends a single company on an assault through unknown territory with no recon against an unknown enemy and gets pissy when Chief simply asks what the terrain is like. The only reason the plan works is Chief sets off on foot by himself. It's not a lack of my understanding because what happens when Del Rio gets to earth? Fleetcom immediately relieves him of command for abandoning the Chief and puts Lasky in charge! Del Rio is just so antagonistic to Master Chief from minute one and the way its written always comes off as odd to me.
@@johnmiller2247so in other words people litreally told you why Del Rio is the way he is and you go "nuh uh" becouse "Del Rio bad" is the common consensus.
13:40
A sense of mystery is one of the best ways to fascinate an audience with one's world and story, but it's a double edged sword. Eventually, a lack of answers becomes boring and people lose interest. I've noticed that finding the balance between world building and maintaining that captivating sense of mystery is a very common problem for franchises as they age.
It’s very tempting to start answering some of the long unanswered questions.
110% agreed. Perhaps they could have hinted at more info about the Flood (thanks for allllllll the research the Forerunners had done on the Flood, and therefore makes sense their study notes would be found) and certainly about the Covenant, but they really should have left the Forerunners themselves a mystery left unknown. And the whole predestination/genetic planning thing of humanity is just weird and necessary. I always thought it was cooler to imagine that the ancient Forerunners were indeed humans and that humanity itself was set back by something (this is where the original firing of the rings could come into play). I was so disappointed to find out that it was just aliens, and that the aliens were petty, and that they can just throw around genetic modifications here and there, and that master chief himself is some Chosen One figure.
Honestly, the Forerunners from 343 are are one of the coolest, most unique species in Sci-Fi that I've read.
I've been playing Halo since CE, and I thought the who mystery of the Forerunners got kinda boring after Halo 3. It's why I unironically love the terminals from halo 3 as they were the first glimpse into this unexplored race
@@agnesoblige3484you mean humans? Cause thats the answer. And if youre gonna say guilty spark was wrong, than you deserve the shlock youve been given
God I love Del Rio. Nothing better than a higher up who, 1: doesn't care, and 2: has clearly consistently failed upwards. He's such a fun secondary antagonist, and in a way, he is kind of right about Cortana. She is a liability.
They did a good job of really expressing his character too. From the way his eyelids flutter before snapping at Chief to the way his voice is calm right before screaming "arrest that man!" Everyone else in 4 feels flat so even though Del Rio is designed to be hated he's awesome
Yeah, they really made a great charactar-that-you-love-to-hate with him.
Man oh man if only they knew what she would do in Halo 5. Del RIo should slap Chiefs cheeks. You guys are right. Del Rio was probably the best character in 4. Laskey was boring, the old woman that got composed was boring. The librarian was ugly. Cortana was nice. real nice.
The section where you walk into the forerunner structure was actually awe inspiring for me. That blue lighting was/is awesome in my opinion. I liked Installation00s interpretation saying it looks that way because it’s “Warrior Servant” architecture instead of the “Builder” architecture you see in the other games. Great vid as always 🔥🔥
That was pretty much my way of looking at it, too.
One thing I really loved about this level was the music "117" is actually one of my favorite halo tracks of all time.
The last section was easily my favorite. Being able to tackle the section however the player wants is so welcoming. It's Halo at its finest and I'm glad for it. And finally getting a proper tank section was very enjoyable to experience.
Not gonna lie i'd like to see you take a look at some of the footage thats popped up recently regarding the 2011 prototypes of Halo 4. The gameplay and level design in general is alot different.
For example for this misson, you would not use a teleporter to exit back out onto the next section. You would be greeted by the mammoth again (with volumetric foglights), infinity looming in directly overhead, and pelicans appearing from the cloud cover to drop off hogs. The target locator would also only call in missiles like in reach, the MAC had to be used manually.
Honestly, I'm glad to hear just a little bit of positivity for halo 4. Glad I wasn't the only one that loved this level
Hijacking the lich was probably my most favorite part of Halo 4. It reminded me a lot of hijacking the scarabs in Halo 2 and 3
I guess if any of the post-Reach levels were gonna get a repeat video, it would be this one. I'll admit, I've often felt like Bungie and 343 Halo shouldn't be that different in theory; they both have clear paths you're *meant* to go down, but like you said, Bungie uses those wider areas more. Even playing 4 for the first time, I could feel the differences. Not quite related, but I remembered not even realizing I could sprint until about halfway through Midnight. XD
i read the forerunner trilogy before playing halo 4. so the terminals were a great addition to the lore i was already familiar with. hated how halo 4 treated the didact. he should have been the main the villain across 343s whole trilogy
I remember exploring the level over and over, trying to break out of the map. Best level from H4 imo.
I like infinity too.
Thing is, halo 4 forerunner desing isnt overdone and all that stuff, its just working and alive
If you turn off all lights, including all those "RGB STRIPS" ok the walls, doors and floors, its OG forerunner style, Halo CE looks, its just that now its working, its on, its been used, let alone the fact thats forerunner rooms ON A SHIELD WORLD not a ring, so even then theyre kinda gonna look different
This is my 2nd favorite 343 level. Composer is my favorite. And als- Wait... have you not made this video before?
Maybe he's updating the video, and he's making a level-by-level assessment of Halo 4.
He made a community post about, here's the text:
"I've reworked my two-year old video on Reclaimer from the ground up, with a completely new script that is a lot more detailed (especially regarding the level's story beats) and far higher audio/video quality"
@@Oni_Evergarden thx
I did, a couple of years ago. But with the recent Halo 4 videos, it's the first time I've been writing each script consecutively with the plan of combining them (I never initially thought I'd try to cover every Halo level), so wanted to rewrite it so its fits better with the other recent pieces. Also, the voiceover quality needed improving and I wanted to bring the resolution up to 4K for longevity's sake. Some day (not for a good while), I'm going to go back and remaster all the other Ultimate Critiques with 4K footage and a few other tweaks, so they'll still be good quality wise for a long time.
@@BenPlaysGames I appreciate these retakes, unless I'm misremembering the analysis is new, fresh and often better as well (more important than the production values to me at least, 1080p is plenty for video games imo).
I think a better way the lore dump couldve been handled is enviromental story telling. Like we could have seen mysterious glyphs on the wall which seems to point at forerunners fighting humans, or a code which looks like humans with the promethians..
That way weve already got half the mystery in our head and were already getting the feeling that the promethians are humans and something happened in the past between humans and forerunners. That way most of what the librarian says is more recognisable and less overwhealming.
I just played this with my cousin on coop. So much fun. For sure best H4 level
Reclaimer is a really good level, but honestly I think I prefer a couple of Halo 5 levels (the sanghelios ones) and a few from Infinite a bit more. Reclaimer is definitely the best from 4 though
This was, above all else, an interesting level that did peak my curiosity, especially with the implementation of the Mammoth and boarding the new Lich. However, I haven't played a more boring mission since getting lost in Halo CE if i missed a single pathfinding light or signal like the arrows.
Reclaimer is proof of famine, not feast. It shows 343 was perfectly capable of capturing the halo spirit since the beginning, but chose not to for one reason or another. What a fucking shame. At least whenever I play through all the games, I can look forward to Reclaimer and the two levels on Sanghelios in halo 5 after I finish reach.
sanghelios on halo 5 are alright. Definitely the best on that game.
It probably is their best level, which is kind of sad. The one thing that I hate about this mission is when you blow up one of the phantoms earlier on before the lich part. It soft locks the game. The lich won't blow up.
Yeah if ur going for that trick u need to wait like 2 seconds. What I do personally is I just wait for the checkpoint then immediately jump on
@@idkanameimnotthatcreative7456 I've tried that trick a few times and could never get it to work. I will have to try that. Been a while since I've played H4. I've been addicted to halo 2 recently.
@@rm25088 same, as hard and unbalanced as it is I love the Legendary challenge lol
@@idkanameimnotthatcreative7456 It sure is fun and frustrating lol
Basically any mission in Infinite is probably better (not just running around the open world).
I don't think I noticed Halo 4 had other spartans outside cutscenes until you talked about them in a previous video (i 2024)… so yeah, count me among those who thought they where souped up soldiers.
Oh and that dialog line from Cortana. I think I've mentioned this before, but this hits like a ton of bricks for me ever since I gradually lost someone very close to me due to severe mental illness. I saw this person fighting the darkness in them (and even had a conversation that it's not too unlike this one). It was harrowing to experience, but it's beautiful to see it captures so well here. The writing is great and Jen Taylors delivery is nothing short of incredible.
Agree som much regarding equipment. Halo Infinite campaign at times feels more like Doom Eternal because so much of Infinite is designed always having access to the grapple. This leads to you on higher difficulties to *always* use this grapple all the time which honestly doesn't feel very Halo like to me. Contrast this with multiplayer where you *sometimes* have equipment, which feels great.
As for the story, it is great in the Forerunner novels, but just doesn't work in the game. They should have just had references to it as easter eggs for hardcore fans (like the terminals in Halo 3 that inspired those books). They should have completely focused on the Cortana plot instead.
Oh, the best level 343 ever made is Pelican Down, though you made me appreciate that H4 does have at least a couple of good levels.
Thanks for the video as always! Great stuff!
Infinity was the best level. It introduced the mantis, has a full tank section, and has a decent on foot section, all of which changes from lush alien Jungle, Damp caverns, a crash site in an open vally, and both an internal and external boarding action environment.
I liked every level of halo 4
I think of the story of halo 4 similar to the prequels in Star Wars. A fantastic story that was executed poorly. If you actually took the time to immerse yourself in the lore and story, it’s fantastic. If you wanna just be told a simple self contained story while enjoying a fun game, it’s awful.
Reclaimer is a favorite of mine. I remember i would replay it a lot as a kid. I think something that would of been interesting is if we could select which particle cannon to destory and the mamonth would go to their. It definitely would have been to much for the 360. But having the choice of which way you want to complete the objective would have been interesting
Unfortunately, I've had this level bug out and soft-lock due to terrain not loading it more than half the times I've ever played it.
Me too. I am pretty sure it happens when you blow up one of the phantoms at the first stop. The one that drops off the wraith. I think.
I'm on the side of liking Del Rio. I do think he's not a great character but what he does do I think is good. I mean, being a good character in 343i Hall, isn't a high bar. I like the Cortana rampancy and the give me the chip scene. Very good and his scene in the intro cutscene is demanding and really makes you hate the guy immediately.
Good to see halo 4 getting some love. I’m pretty tired of hearing about WhY 343 HaLos SUcKs.
it's definitely not great.
When I was younger I thought the Spartan 4s in this mission were new ODSTs
Correct me if I’m wrong; but weren’t most Spartan 4s formally ODSTs?
@@RedCommunistDragon a lot were, not all
As a game only fan of Halo who has never read any of the books or knows anything about the extended lore, plus as a fan of the Bungie games growing up in the early 2000s, and being in my late teens once Halo 4 came out, I loved Halo 4.
The lore dump as you say, was welcomed in my case. I always wanted to know more about the Forerunners ever since they were mentioned in Halo CE. So because you fight them in H4, the background lore was an awesome addition.
Personally, when it comes to H4 specifically, I think fans were primarily mad it wasn't Bungie any more, and are likely the types who also cried that sprint was a core ability.
So H4 I'll defend forever.
H5 and Infinite on the other hand...
4 was… okay. I liked having sprint, it felt much closer to how Spartans perform in lore, but the story was iffy. That said, iffy is galaxies superior to 5.
@@PhoenixT70 How was the story iffy? 4 had one of the better stories in Halo. Probably next to Reach.
@@bigdoubleu117 Because it squandered its potential. 4’s story could have been spun out into its own trilogy; if it had been, I think it the 343 games might have been on par with the original trilogy. Instead, they made the Didact, an honest-to-god Forerunner, into a one-game villain who was killed in a comic strip. “Missed opportunities” doesn’t even begin to cover it. That’s Halo 4’s sin: it should have been more.
@@PhoenixT70 Future issues can't retroactively make H4 bad.
I agree 343 loves killing off their villains off screen for some reason, and that's really stupid of them, but H4 as it's own story, is good.
@@bigdoubleu117 Even if we disregard the comic, they killed the Didact (who should have been a threat to rival the Covenant) in a single game. That is disappointing. The Didact could have been another Prophet of Truth, the leader of an enormously powerful enemy faction-maybe a new Covenant, maybe just a rebranded Ecumene. Instead, he’s basically a glowing Batman villain with a cartoonishly evil plan.
4 should have been great. The character growth between Chief and Cortana is genuinely touching and beautifully acted; the way they interact in 4 is actually my favorite portrayal of the two in all of Halo because it turns Chief into a genuine character. Sadly, the larger story those scenes are built around is rushed beyond all reason. As a stand-alone game, Halo 4 is okay. As part of a series, as the setup for a new trilogy, as 343’s first Halo title, it is insufficient and served only as the harbinger of worse titles to come.
Honestly, all of H4 is a victim to poor execution but great ideas
It’s sad to see all these good ideas and intentions that could’ve been improved upon, only to have Halo 5 and Infinite throw the baby out with the bathwater.
343’s approach to the Forerunner’s story in this game is bizarre. It seems like they initially wanted the Didact’s nature to be unveiled through the terminals, then had to put in this massive info dump when it occurred to them that most players would skip them (and considering you needed a third party app that was janky at best to view them in vanilla Halo 4…). And even then, you need Silentium ( a 300 page hard sci fi heavy read that came out several months after Halo 4) to get any real depth out of his turn on a dime from grimly pragmatic general to axe crazy Sith Lord wannabe.
yeah I had no idea wtf was going on. Just like all the 343 games. You have to read all the lore before you can play any of them.
To me this mission only showed why the rest of the game wasn't more open. The downgrades to enemy AI routines were obvious enough in the linear segments, but it becomes extraordinarily annoying in the open arena and vehicle sections. Combine it all with a fairly boring sandbox, obnoxious sound direction and general pacing issues (the Mammoth especially is way too slow) and you get a terrible experience. Is it the best H4 can offer? Maybe. It's certainly the most memorable. But an interesting concept can not save it from Halo 4's structural and gameplay problems.
I don’t mind learning more about the Forerunners, I think it’s a natural progression of the story to try and understand them further, I just wish they’d have been more akin to what Bungie imagined them to be; properly mysterious and more aloof, truly almost god-like. 343 making them basically no different to prehistoric humans was a huge blow to the mystery of them. And while I do enjoy the concept that ancient Humanity went to war against them and lost, I just don’t know that it truly fits into the larger picture all that well, especially with the glaring plot hole that the only reason for the conflict was Humanity entering Forerunner space while retreating from The Flood; you’d have thought that a simple communication to the Forerunners to warn them of the greater threat would’ve pushed them to form an alliance. And I completely agree with your assessment on the whole gene song thing, it was so unnecessary to have Humanity’s progress be preordained, and it really detracts from how truly intelligent people like Halsey are supposed to be to have created Mjölnir and the Spartans. But also what was the purpose of the Librarian planning that out? How did she know the Didact would awaken? Humanity woke the Didact, so does that mean she also planned that out and then built a plan to defeat him? It just makes no sense and feels incredibly tacked on. One of the things that made Bungie’s games great was that Humanity felt almost believable in some sense, that 500 years from now we could probably be traveling the stars with super-soldiers on the very cutting edge of science, and just barely holding our own against some random aliens. Then 343 took over and the power creep went to the next level, now everybody’s a super soldier, everything has Forerunner tech in it, the Didact has a device that can literally digitize entire cities to steal the essence of a person and yet somehow we’re supposed to believe he wouldn’t wipe the floor with the UNSC fleet. It’s all just weird. The only good story 343 have ever told is that of the connection between Chief and Cortana in 4, everything else just doesn’t fit.
This is the only level I remember fondly from Halo 4 or 5.
I'm surprised you didn't make any mention of the fact you're fighting both Prometheans and Covenant at the same time ~7:55
Fun fact, you can beat this level on LASO without firing your gun once.
12:00 Nope. This was when I got angry. F this retcon. F this retcon in particular.
No wonder Bungie didnt like Frank. His ideas contradict everything
Pretty sure Frank got his feelings hurt by bungie and decided to just slowly destroy Halo and all of bungies hard work. It worked.
For me it was Halo 3: The Covenant
classic
Captain Keyes >>> Captain Del Rio
YO I APPRECIATE YOU NOT RUNNING OVER THAT MARINE IN THE SCORPION 15:00
Could you please record holotapes detailing the spooky horror of the Museum of Witchcraft in Fallout 4, the Glowing Sea shack bunker and Sentinel Site? Ad Victoriam Scribe Ben.
When I load up h4 if ever I do it’s always this level. Or the mantis level.
They used the Mammoth once and never use it again
Everything about halo 4’s level design is new and fresh! The ambition that halo 3 had with environments was turned up to 11! everything is action based which is something that I very much enjoyed! Every environment is insanely detailed, and insanely ambitious! Every level has something new to offer! The ghost run is insane, and I love it! Driving a ship while going through tough obstacles is something that I’ll never forget! Driving a pelican for the first time is still something that blows my mind! I always thought the engine in halo 4 was very insane back on the Xbox 360, and it still is!
You are a very enthusiastic fella.
the Idea that Every Thing humanity achived was Predestend sucks
You don't think the sanghelios saga is the best of what 343 has done?? As much as I despise halo 5s story those missions shine very bright
He has praised them before, so it's not like he doesn't think they are good.
Halo 5 did have some good missions. But everything else about it was just god awful. The art design in particular. Oh, and the story. Threw us a curve ball with Locke. I didn't read the books so I had no idea what was going on. Just like Infinite and Halo 4. Reading the books is 1000 percent necessary for 343 games.
Funny thing is I actually, unironically absolutely hate this level lol.
I heavily disagree. I think warship gbraakon is 343’s best halo level
Ben, I feel like we’ve had this conversation before mate.
I miss the days when Master Chief was just a kick-A super soldier and not "The Chosen One". A lot of people love the Forerunner lore in Halo, but my own take is that they would have benefitted in keeping the mysticism in the mystery/unknown category rather than in some sort of "chosen one" pseudoscience category. Halo CE was epic not because of how much alien/ancient lore we knew, but how much we DIDN'T know. The Flood is certainly, and hints about their origins would be fun to sprinkle here and there - but we should have left the Forerunners much, MUCH more shrouded in mystery and unknown. oh well.
Halo 4 is a game 11 years after Halo 1, the thing about the Forerunners being mysterious is completely boring, plus the fact that the chief is treated as the chosen one is nothing more than another name for "luck". simply canonical explanation of its plot armor.
@@spartanjohn-1176the mystery is only boring if it remains the focus but by removing the mystery you take away that element entirely. I agree that the series needed to pivot, but 343 took the entirely wrong route in my opinion. If you’re going to take a key characteristic away from the series you should probably compensate in some way. And chief isn’t just treated as a chosen one, thats not new, now he literally is one which is much less interesting. Luck is ambiguous while forerunner evolutionary genetic engineering is very on the nose
@@COMDStudios Not at all, the writing is correct, you cannot take seriously someone who thinks that something has to be silent or not have any information to be interesting. Go back to 2001, in this era no one is interested in flat characters or things.
@@spartanjohn-1176 didn’t say it was the only way but it is one way to garner intrigue or interest. It’s interesting that you are against flat characters when I feel like that’s what this expanded lore turned the characters into
@@COMDStudios I hope you never create games or books. No one would buy from you with your way of thinking. Get update.
Man that 343 bar of quality remains low when this is their best level
no lol this level is easily better than 90% of the og halo levels. I will not name halo ce because it is unfair due to the difference in technology, but all the levels in halo 2 lose and "the Covenant and the ark" are not the only levels that exist in halo 3
@@spartanjohn-1176 the worst level in halo 2 its way better than this bro sorry
@@LKNear Your opinion is completely incorrect. Facts.
@@LKNearliterally when I first played it I looked up the sky and asked myself why the hell is there a green skybox 😭
I would rather play Halo 2s The arbiter 10000 times than any of 343 missions.
Honestly, I always thought this is *the worst* halo level ever… I always skip it when I’m redoing the campaign
The only thing 343 or Bungi will EVER get right, is having a wraith gunner die faster than the pilot. Seriously I can kill an elite Zealot out of the pilot seat but a GRUNT is still alive in the gunner seat
Until I saw this video, I would have said that this level was one of the worst parts of Halo 4. It felt like a slow escort mission to me, with narrative that fumbled in all the ways that he described in the video.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I think the reason I remember this level as bad is because I don't remember most of the levels of H4 at all and really disliked the game on the whole, so I must have just blocked out all the other levels in my mind.
I feel like you've talked about every halo level to the fullest extent by this point. Not saying that it's bad to keep doing these videos, but it's a bit repetitive.
He is known for Halo videos. I'm waiting for him to do the Halo 4 legendary stream.
The effects of this mission were so low-quality and the mission on a quality level felt poorly done. Those covenant cruisers way off in the distance? Watch them and you can see the Infinity go through them when it approaches. The explosion of the canon looks like crap, Halo 3 had better "big thing exploding" effects. The explosion of the covenant ship also looks terrible. In general, H4's explosion effects were bad compared even to Halo 3.
Your criticisms are illogical. Halo 4 is a graphically heavier and more detailed game than Halp 3, obviously there is going to be a decrease in the effects so that the Xbox 360 can handle it.
We still don't know what are the other "gifts" the Librarian gave to the Master Chief. Just that one of them is an immunity to the Composer.
Ngl the 'best' level is still pretty boring.
Hi, great vid as always, I was the 666th like
wrong, composer exists and is my favorite covenent mission in the entire series
I don’t replay halo 4, I replay reclaimer
This is the worst mission for sure
I didnt like this mission as well.
keep scrolling
That's really sad cus that level sucks
Good joke
@@spartanjohn-1176 Even more sad, it isn't a joke
@@monolith4653 is a joke
@@spartanjohn-1176 Lol you are offended
@@monolith4653 minory
The only reason to have Halo 4 installed on the MCC imo lol