Halo: Legends Impressions

We may not be seeing a Halo movie grace the silver screen anytime soon, however 343 Studios, Microsoft's Halo-themed studio, has commissioned several Japanese companies to create a series of anime shorts for the small screen. With the launch of Halo Waypoint, a portal for Xbox LIVE Gold members to check out content on all things Halo, 343 Studios has had a "theatre" for limited screenings to showcase what Halo: Legends will offer fans.

Halo: Legends will feature seven shorts, six of which are canon to the Halo universe and the other being a parody. Over the last several weeks, we were treated to an episode, or part of an episode, each of which had a limited one-day run.

One thing I need to bring to the forefront right now is that I don't like anime. The art style has never appealed to me what-so-ever, and I like more realistic 3D pieces. I would have much preferred Halo: Legends to be completely CG (think the Halo Wars cutscenes, which were epic), however having said that, I do like the Halo universe and I like Halo fiction. I found the concept of several short stories worked very well for the recent novel, Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, and generally, in terms of story telling, I've found Halo: Legends to be more-or-less up to snuff. Though talk about starting on the wrong foot.

The first episode previewed was entitled "The Babysitter," in which a squad of ODST's is hot-dropped to a Covenant controlled world to eliminate a Prophet. The catch for them is that a Spartan-II has also been assigned to their mission. 343 Studios hoped to show the tension and rivalry between the ODST and Spartan-II ranks, something readers of the novels already know about but players of the games alone wouldn't. To keep it brief, the Master Chief killed some ODST's right after being cybernetically and genetically augmented and he wasn't punished for it, so ODST's hate Spartan's. In this episode the squad's sniper, O'Brien, is put on a support role as the Spartan-II is meant to do the actual target elimination.

So, as we all know, humanity nearly lost the war, and throughout it's entire 27 year course we were pretty much getting our asses handed to us by the Covenant. Now I know why: Because we have idiot cry-baby's like O'Brien in our elite special ops squads who sport non-regulation hair cuts that just wouldn't work in a standard ODST bucket! Instead of a mature, brooding dislike of the Spartan for taking his place, O'Brien gripes, complains, and even whines like a juvenile idiot. Some tough-as-nails soldier he is. The rest of his squad is alright, and Dutch makes an appearance as well, but seriously. Same goes for the dumb naval crewman who kept wanting to sit with the ODST squad on the ship. Stupid, just stupid and in such contrast to the established Halo-fiction that's been going on for years in the novels. I simply can't like "The Babysitter," it's a kiddie, Saturday morning cartoon version of Halo that happens to feature anime-style blood and violence, and it fails on pretty much every level leaving a very sour taste in my mouth.

Thankfully, the next episode showcased, "The Duel," redeems things in my eyes. The visual style is unique, and not what I've come to expect from anime. It's more like a painting in motion, and while I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either, so I suppose that's a plus. "The Duel" takes place long before the Human-Covenant War, and shows the effects the Covenant are having on Elite society. Unlike the craptastic "The Babysitter," "The Duel" actually features mature storytelling with a distinct Japanese flavour, and it features a wealth of new information for Halo fans.

For the first time ever we get to see the Elite homeworld. Their structures and architecture, their training regime, and one of the most fascinating pieces of info of all, how the role of Arbiter came to be what it is within the Covenant by the time of the Halo trilogy. Both well done and entertaining, the Arbiter of this time rebels against Covenant dogma, and the Hierarches are not too pleased at all. The only thing I'm not sure of is the timeline of this piece. From what I can gather, it takes place earlier on in the formation of the Covenant, yet in a large battle, the majority of the Covenant races we know are present, save that they shouldn't have even been discovered yet. Despite this possible inconsistency, I was quite impressed with "The Duel."

The next episode previewed was split into two parts. Entitled "The Package," it takes place roughly midway through the way and sees Blue Team, lead by Master Chief, taking on an entire covenant fleet to retrieve a captured asset. What I found most interesting about this episode, however, is that it's in 3D, and while not Halo Wars cutscene quality, it was the best visually thus far.

The first part focused on ship-to-ship combat, as the Spartan-II's attempted to locate which vessel contains the asset, and it was rather cool to finally put faces to Kelly and Fred, Spartan-II's who've been with the fiction since the beginning. In this first part, they use Booster Frames to navigate and fight through space, and while this part of the episode was good, I personally found it bland and stereotypical. It was good, but nothing I'd care to see again. The second part however, taking place on board of Covenant ship, was exceptional. The pacing, direction, and selection of camera views (the use of HUD POV was superb) just blew me away, and I watched this one again and again. Not only that, but we finally get to see an extremely important character visually for the first time, and while she didn't look like what I would have expected, the story tie-ins with her are interesting.

The last of the previewed episodes is the first part to "Origins," a more traditionally animated piece in which Cortana tells the story of the Forerunner's war with the Flood. This episode was okay, though a little slow for my liking and it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know (save that Cortana mentions she was created 7 years ago, so unless her and the Chief have been drifting in space for years after Halo 3, this simply can't be as she was only created a few years prior to the games). The war with the Flood was exactly what we've all come to expect, and the "cool" factor for "Origins" comes in the first viewing of the Forerunners themselves. We never see their faces, mind you, they're always completely dressed and often wearing their combat skins (armour), but we now know more-or-less what the Forerunners looked like.

In addition to the episode previews, we were also treated to "Making Of" documentaries for each, all of which were well done and really explained what the teams set out to do with each episode. It's quite interesting to see where each episode drew its inspiration from, such as "The Duel" being based on an actual legendary Japanese samurai.

Halo: Legends launches on February 16th on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, On Demand, and digital download. So, based on the previews from Halo Waypoint, will it be worth your cash? Well, we've already seen about half of what the package has to offer, but so long as it's about $20.00, I'd say yes. It contains enough entertainment value, even for a non-anime fan like me, and "The Babysitter" aside, each episode does expands and enhances the wonderful universe that is Halo. For me, I'll be comparing costs of the 2-Disc DVD and digital download to see which is cheaper and more practical for my use.

Over the coming weeks, look for trailers of the non-previewed episodes to be showcased on Halo Waypoint.