- jiggerstick
- |
- Exalted Heroic Member
- gamertag: [none]
- user homepage:
Halo 2 is the only one that ended with a cliffhanger that left the game feeling incomplete in my opinion.
In the first Halo, you destroy the ring, defeat the covenant armada on Halo, and to your knowledge the flood. You're left with the quote "No, I think we're just getting started" you could take as making it a cliffhanger, but in my opinion it is a very complete ending that leaves things open to a sequel.
Halo 2 you feel like you're building up to this huge climax, do arbiter's thing and finish his story, find out you need to deactivate the other halo rings, and you cut back to master chief saying "Sir, finishing this fight". -blam!- is about to get real and then... nope, credits. The game never really felt like it hit an ending point, things kept building up more and more and then just get cut off and credits role.
Halo 3 is much in the same was as Halo CE. You finish what you were doing in Halo 2, tie off a bunch of other loose ends. The covenant are disbanded, the flood is destroyed, and the elites are returning to their home planet. Master Chief goes into cryo and says "Wake me when you need me" again leaving things open for more after what I think is a pretty complete ending.
The planet in the legendary edition feels like more of a tease than anything, you see it, you don't know what it is, and it had nothing to do with the story the game was telling.
Looking back, now that we have the complete trilogy, Halo 2's ending isn't as bad as everybody, including me, said it was back in the day. But getting such an abrupt ending back then and having to wait 3 years to see what would happen next really hurt my appreciation of the game.