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I do not want to stop asking. I do not ask to stop wanting.
Posted by: The 7th Taco
I think what you're feeling is the lack of the "last stand" sort of feel.
Have you noticed that you never truly win at the end of every Halo?
Halo Wars - Blew yourself up to stop the Covenant and doomed the Spirit of Fire to be stranded in space.
Halo Reach - All of your team dies (Including you) in order to protect the planet, and you still end up losing Reach.
Halo CE - Destroyed Halo, allowed the Covenant to learn the location of Earth, lost Captain Keys, The Pillar of Autumn, and every soldier besides Johnson and Master Chief.
Halo 2 - Losing the battle of earth, unleashed the Flood, and lost Cortana.
Halo ODST - Losing the battle on earth.
Halo 3 - Stranded in space and presumed dead.
Halo 4 - Cortana dies
Now, the thing is, of course losing Cortana is a MAJOR loss... But that's pretty much the only loss. And to put it simply, Humanity kicks too much ass in Halo 4. You just don't feel as vulnerable, and even Lasky says in the intro to War Games that the human race has evolved so much that they no longer hide from the enemy, but actually seek to destroy them.
TL;DR: Halo 4 just doesn't have the same epic feel as the original trilogy, but is still a very good game.
It's not that either. Halo 4 did the whole loss thing really well, IMO. Lasky telling Chief that soldiers weren't just machines and Chief reflecting upon what Cortana thought with the Never Forget-esque piano chords in the background hit me pretty hard.
It's just...
Think about Halo CE- Halo 3. What was the overall tone? To me it consisted of the ethereal female choir, ambient, alien beauty, and an "ancient yet advanced" sort of feel.
ODST- Loneliness. Darkness. Light at the end.
Reach- Despair, tragedy and dread (though how well it did this is another matter entirely).
Halo 4? I can think of many highly memorable moments, but I can't put together an overall emotional tone, or a consistent feel for the game.