2.5/5 ★ – WoahItsFlug's review of Halo 5: Guardians.

Halo 5 is a puzzle that has all the right pieces, but they're jammed into places they don't fit and some are knocked off the table entirely. Full of interesting ideas, cool setpieces, and new characters, but falls victim to poor structure, even poorer character writing, a runtime too short for its plot, and an overall lack of direction.It's ultimately not a terrible game, but for every stride it stumbles, and the servicable gameplay isn't enough to save it from its bad story. -Gameplay wise, Guardians doubles down on many aspects of Halo 4. Increased mobility and speed are a focus here. The enemy selection is more or less the same, but the prometheans are tweaked and have a new class added. Sadly, I think these changes are for the worse, as Knights are even bigger bullet sponges and the new mid-size class teleport far too often. The covenant are more or less the same. The weapon selection is also largely the same as Halo 4, and the few new weapons mostly fill niches of weapons removed from previous games. -This game is a visual treat. Style wise it's more or less the same as Halo 4, but with brighter colors and better lighting. The new armor designs are mostly pretty solid, and it mostly runs well. -Where the game really falls apart is with its story and its character writing. In my opinion, the game's biggest sin is the character regression of Master Chief. From the beginning, he is almost blindly trusting of Cortana and the Warden Eternal, and although he's never been afraid to go against orders when needed, his complete willingness to abandon the UNSC and throw down with his fellow spartans feels out of character. It doesn't help that unlike in 4, we don't actually spend much time with Chief getting to understand his point of view, as you play with Blue Team for less than half of the runtime. Then there's Cortana. To be honest, her turn to villainy isn't *quite* as terrible as I remembered. It's a fine idea in theory and sets up some interesting future plotlines (whcih would be abandoned after this game's poor reception), but again, not nearly enough time is spent on her. She does an almost complete 180° and barely even feels like the same character. There are glimpses, but even down to the way she talks, it feels disingenuous and like a plot twist made for the sake of having a twist. The Warden is a servicable secondary antagonist but becomes annoying by the end as his repetetive boss battles stop you in your tracks over and over. -The new lead protagonist in Spartan Locke, and the rest of team Osiris including the returning, newly-promoted Buck from ODST are fine. They have some interesting enough backstories, especially Locke's past as a spy and hitman, making other character distrusting of him. It's a shame they're dropped after this appearance. The return of the Arbiter is also welcome, and the Sangheli Civil War is one of the few plotpoints in this game that feels sure-footed and delivers fully, in my opinion. -Beyond the poor character work, this game's other biggest problem is its runtime and structure. It feels like just as things are finally picking up and becoming interesting, the credits roll. Chief has turned against Cortana and has reunited with Halsey and the Arbiter, and the idea of an AI uprising and the unification of the galaxy's many different races under one banner seems like an awesome setup, but as soon as they begin the game ends and these plotlines are dropped in favor of a soft reset with Halo Infinite. Especially with the knowledge of where the series goes after, the whole game feels like a pointless detour into a story that never recieves an ending.