Halo Legends Review

    Anime and videogames has always been pretty synonymous. But how well exactly does FPS powerhouse Halo adapt to this medium change?

      Halo Legends is a compilation of eight stories from eight different artists. None of the episodes are connected in any real way, with the exception of the first two Origin stories. While each is only about ten minutes long, there is a wealth of content to delve into. From my knowledge, something like this has never really been done for a videogame. The closest thing I could relate this to is the Animatrix, a similar collection of short stories from The Matrix universe.

Ep.1 and 2 - Origins

    As the first episodes, it makes sense that the are origin stories. There is a ton of lore in the Halo series, and this is the best explanation of it I have ever seen. It starts with Cortana and the Chief drifting through space after the events of the third game. It starts with a sort of monologue from Cortanas perspective then into the past with her narrating the entire Halo struggle. And when I say entire struggle, I mean the entire struggle. It shows the Forerunner homeworlds first contact with The Flood, making the rings, detonating them, the Covenant forming, and pretty much every single thing that has happened up to this point. It also stresses a very unique point about war; war is just  building our technology enough to be able to stand against an unknown foe. All of this content, plus it being extremely well animated, make these two episodes the definite strong point of this collection.

Ep. 3 - The Duel

    Now that the intro for the uninformed is over, its time to get to the meat of what Halo Legends is; a series of isolated mini-stories. The Duel shows us for the first time the homeworld of the Sangheili; Sanghelios. Their world is depicted as a ancient Chinese-like culture, with honor being held above all. It tells the story of an Arbiter named Fal, and the downfall of the Arbiters name. There is also a lot of political drama going on with Fal being resistant to joining the Covenant. The art style not only sets this episode apart from the others, but from almost every other animated I have ever seen. Its a blend between 3D and watercolor, an unlikely combination if I ever heard of one, but it works surprisingly well and is a nice change from the norm.

Ep.4 - Homecoming

    The thing I realized halfway through Halo Legends is that after episode three, things start going a little downhill. Homecoming is the first of this downfall. It starts out really well, with a good mood setting monologue about the war and an exciting premise, but then you notice that there is something a little weird about how the characters are talking. And then the anime cheesiness just full out smacks you in the face. The plot is at least good at the core, its about the Spartans having clones they didn't know about replace them when they were children, and how they dealt with it.

Ep. 5 - Odd One Out

    This is a parody of Dragon Ball Z. It is really good, as I am sure you can imagine.

Ep. 6 - Prototype

    This one is much like Ep. 4, it has a really solid plot, but it suffers from heavy cheesiness. Its about Ghost, and how he has no feelings because of so much fighting, and there is a girl. The mech fighting really is good though, worth watching just for that.

Ep. 7/8 - The Babysitter

    Imagine how Saturday morning cartoons are now, the bad ones. That is exactly what you should expect when you watch these two last episodes.

  So, that is Halo Legends. I would say don’t buy it, but if you can find it somewhere for free it’s defiantly worth it. What did you really expect?