Halo: Reach/YMMV


The following are Subjective Tropes relating to Halo: Reach.

  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Bungie knows how to please the fans-
    • Co-Op Campaign Matchmaking! Space combat! Jetpacks!
    • Forge 2.0 and Forge World!
    • Blood Gulch! Firefight, Firefight Versus, Custom Firefight, and Firefight Matchmaking! In Firefight 2.0, you can create your own skulls.
    • A SWAT playlist! An Infection playlist! A Sniper playlist!
  • Awesome Music: Martin O'Donnell. Do you even need to ask?
  • Base Breaker: Possibly from day one, this game alone is this.
  • Best Level Ever: Oh, jeez, where to begin? This game has a several of most awesome levels of a series that is composed of awesome levels:
    • Tip Of The Spear: drive the new Rocket Warthog through canyons, destroying an AA gun; dismount and fight through a Covie-held facility, steal a Covenant Ghost or Revenant and destroy another gun, then take the turret of a Falcon and rain grenades on Covenant forces. Wrap it up by grabbing the Jetpack for the first time in the campaign and flying up to the giant Covenant Spire to take it down.
    • Long Night of Solace: opens up with you fighting through Covenant forces on a beach to get to your Sabre, letting you take the fight to space. You board a Covenant spaceship and have to put down the entire crew, and then protect a warp drive your team smuggled in to wreck the whole boat. The areas are huge and you have the almost the whole menu of weaponry to mow down the increasingly pissed off Covenant with.
    • Exodus: after jumping from orbit back on to Reach, Noble Six spends nine days walking to a city under siege. It starts out slow - eerily so - where the only enemies you face are a handful of skirmishers and several suicide Grunts. Then, all at once, you're placed in the middle of the action, fighting Skirmishers, Jackals, Grunts and Brutes left and right, while you get to save civilians and soldiers who were amazed at Six coming out of absolutly nowhere to save their asses. You'll get to use several awesome Armor Abilities and weapons here. You can find Gravity Hammers, Fuel Rod Guns, countless Spikers, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Rocket Launchers, as well as Jetpacks, Drop Shields, Cloaking, Armor Locks, turrets and Falcons, all ending with you saving the entire city's remaining population to be evacuated safely. Oh, and there are no Elites in this level either.
    • New Alexandria: Six of the seven Armor Abilities to be found[1], flying around in falcons or easily hijacked banshees, an open level with a variety of missions that can happen in any order, this level will never have the same events twice. You fight every enemy race of the Covenant in this game here, both in the sky and on the ground, you can again find a variety of weapons, and if you do this right with two or more people on your team, you can easily get events to be beyond simplistic to complete.
    • The Package: sneak back to the location of the game's second level, now a blasted wasteland rather than an ice shelf. Drive a tank right up to Sword Base's front door, fight your way inside for the second time, and, after some plot exposition, fend off wave upon wave of forces with a huge stockpile of weapons and ammunition. And/or Banshees if you can nab them.
    • The last level, The Pillar of Autumn: bring the fragment of Cortana through canyons and caves with Emile, at one point driving a Mongoose right past dozens of enemies, until you reach the ship-breaking yard. Fight some more in close quarters to a landing pad, where you need to fight off the Covenant, until handing over Cortana to Captain Keyes and taking control of a huge mass driver cannon to destroy Phantoms, Banshees and the overhead Covenant Cruiser so the Pillar can take off... leaving you behind. Carter and Emile's sacrifices deserve some credit too.
  • Broken Base: There is a growing rift in the player base of Reach, now that the Halo series is in the hands of 343 Industries. 343i's first order of business was to release a title update for Reach, to introduce some changes to aspects of the gameplay that the community had been clamoring for. The two opposing factions, then, are those who are in favour of the title update changes, and those who think Reach was perfect from launch day.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Heartwarmingly averted by Bungie, who have repeatedly rolled out new playlists to accommodate popular gametypes such as SWAT or Infection, preventing players online from getting annoyed at having to participate in the same modes too frequently.
    • Played straight with the Blood Gul- Hemorrhage map, which gains a lot of nostalgia-fueled votes whenever it appears as a choice.
  • Crazy Awesome: Emile seems a little unhinged for a Spartan.
    • Check out the way he sits in the rear of the Pelican during the second-to-last mission. It doesn't matter how much of a super soldier he is, that is not the safest way to sit on a moving aircraft.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • The Mythic skull practically turns every Leader-class enemy into this, because it doubles shield strength as well as health now.
    • Elites with Energy Swords. Like in the first Halo game, they run faster than you do and have enhanced shields and health, making it extremely tough to gun them down before they reach you and one-hit-kill you. It gets even better in Score Attack when multiple cloaked Elites bumrush you with swords drawn on the final wave.
    • Elite Generals and Zealots obviously qualify in campaign, but their worst incarnation is without a doubt, Heretics in Firefight. They can randomly spawn as any one wave in each of the three rounds of Arcadefight or FF Limited, they appear in some of the largest numbers of any wave in the game, and they wield human weapons.
      • The different waves of Heretics are practically the definition of It Got Worse:
        • The first one is a assortment of Minors with ARs and pistols, with the odd Major or Ultra with a DMR or shotgun thrown into the mix. Not that bad unless you're out in the open when they spawn... but just wait.
        • The second round will have a precision loadout: the Minors all have DMRs, and they're backed up by Majors with Sniper Rifles, who instantly explain why Bungie cut the Beam Rifle from this game. Oh, and this round has the aforementioned Mythic Skull turned on. Good luck dealing with the sniper who keeps Tough Lucking away from your shots after you take his shields down to half.
        • But OH GOD, the third round... Explosives. EVERY Minor has a grenade launcher. And the Majors? Just remember that a rocket to the face will still one-shot you even with 2x shields. If you're real lucky, you might have a Major spawn with a Laser instead. Not that you'll know where any of them are because the radar-killing Cloud skull comes on this round, in addition to Mythic and all the previous ones.
    • Pretty much any time you hear a Drop Pod come down in Firefight, you know you're in big trouble. Enemies from Drop Pods are actually programmed to be more aggressive and chuck grenades even more often. You'll draw four of either Elite Ultras with Plasma Repeaters, Brute Infantry with Concussion Rifles, or...
    • Grunts with Fuel Rod Guns. Little target, big volley of blasts that will kill you in a close area. You have to snipe the little buggers because you're not approaching them.
      • And in case that wasn't bad enough, hostile Elites can now use Fuel Rod Guns, as well (whereas up until now FRGs could only be wielded by Elites on your side). Same lethality, now with shields.
      • In Exodus, the first enemies you face are purely suicide Grunts. There are dozens of them, and very little room to maneuver.
      • The above isn't so bad if you're pretty good with Armor Lock.
    • Hunters will now take pains to protect their weak spots.
      • Luckily, you can stick them with a plasma grenade and blow off a considerable amount of their back armor.
    • Skirmishers. They're the same species as Jackals, but most don't use shields. Why? Because they don't need them; they're faster than even Drones. The ones that do, have a pair of medium-sized shields on their elbows and will strafe wildly around the room with their faces covered while plasma-spamming you. Did we mention that it's nearly impossible to kill these things without a headshot if they're running?
  • Fan Dumb/Hate Dumb: If you look around any message boards, the derision leveled towards any change and/or any lack of change is nearly endless. This post pretty much sums it up.
  • Game Breaker:
    • The orbital bombardment designator. It's only really balanced out by the fact it only appears in one mission in the single-player campaign, and it's rare in Firefight. For obvious reasons it's not available in multi-player. How nasty is it? Point it next to a Phantom as it's about to unload a wave of multiple weak enemies like Grunts, and you're pretty much guaranteed a Killionaire. If you're anywhere close to the designation zone, you will be murdered just from the splash damage.
    • Fuel Rod guns in most versions of firefight count too. The weapon's high power, relatively large clip and fast firing rate means it outclasses most other weapons in sheer splash damage.This wouldn't be a problem (the gun can hold about 30 rounds and ammo isn't common), if it wasn't for Unlimited ammo.
    • Some consider the Banshee to be this. As well as Armor Lock before (and, for some, still after) the Title Update.
  • Genius Bonus: Just how many players noticed that "Nightfall" starts at 26:30 Hours?[2] Reach's days are twenty-seven hours long.
  • Goddamned Bats: Practically every enemy in the game counts as one. This is not the Halo you once knew.
    • Those goddamned Drones. Especially en masse.
    • BRUTES. IN. FIREFIGHT. They always land one lucky stick. Kiss that Perfection medal you were going for goodbye.
    • Grunts with Fuel Rod Cannons.
      • Go play the Gruntpocalypse variant on Score Attack. You'll never underestimate those little dudes again.
    • Jackals with Focus Rifles. Especially on Waterfront, where they camp at the top of a cliff. Considering you play on Heroic by default on Matchmaking, getting shot by one of these guys usually means you're going to die if you don't kill them quick.
      • The ones with Needle Rifles, too; Firefight seems to be the only mode where they actually aim for your head.
    • Skirmishers, the Jackals' bastard cousins, move around at hyper-speed and can only be reliably put down with headshots. Some even have two deflector shields on their elbows to protect them from said headshots.
      • What do you get when you cross Gruntpocalypse with Skirmishers? Skirmi-fucking-geddon. Good luck if you missed your first shot on that one who was holding the Focus Rifle...
  • Good Bad Bugs: If your footing is uneven in multiplayer, the game will sometimes cancel your Assassination animation while awarding you the medal and kill. Sucks if you wanted the bragging rights, but it could also save your hide from nearby enemies.
    • Forge World map variants exist to let you run around underwater without penalty. You can't see squat and there's nothing interesting down there, but still...
    • On rare occasions, Covenant vehicles are known to mock the laws of physics and launch themselves to infinity and beyond, largely due to the game resolving their springy hover movement in odd ways.
    • Bungie reported several amusing ones during the Beta. They were all fixed, of course.
      • A female Spartan would switch to a male model when its shields were popped.
      • When rotating an Elite in the Armory, the legs wouldn't move with the rest of it.
      • Continuously bumping into Kat would cause her to string together suggestive dialog.
      • In the Oddball gametype, a hologram could pick up the ball.
    • One that Bungie either missed, ignored or decided was for the best, is the split-screen bug that allows for up to 4 players on the same console to play Firefight and Campaign. The glitch is performed more or less like it was in Halo 3 and allows for a full campaign squad on a single console.
    • In Nightfall, it is possible to jump through a door if you park a forklift next to it and dismount. This allows you to avoid the most difficult section of the level, including a mandatory Hunter fight, and prevents the enemies past the door from spawning, letting you walk to the exit of the level unopposed.
    • Flying Grunts.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: "That lone wolf stuff stays behind."
  • Lady Mondegreen: When Noble Team talks to Dr. Halsey, Jorge addresses her as "ma'am". But his thick accent makes it sound more like "mum", confusing some players into thinking Dr. Halsey is Jorge's mother (which wouldn't even make sense since all SPARTAN-IIs were taken away from their parents in secrecy when they were chosen for the program).
    • She WAS the closest thing to a mother figure the SPARTAN IIs had...
  • Memetic Badass: Dr. Halsey does this with a simple quote.

Dr. Halsey: Six has made entire militia groups disappear. Curious... "hyper lethal". There's only one other Spartan with that rating.

  • Memetic Mutation: "KAT'S ASS", among others.
    • Kat also spawned another meme, "Kat can't drive", when videos started popping up of her utterly failing at being a good driver. "Fails of the Weak" from Rooster Teeth helped spread the infamy of Kat.
    • One of the forum users on Bungie reacted to his account getting banned saying that it will cause a "DRASTIC DROP IN SAILS" for banning the people who cheated in the game.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Emile is extremely popular, yet he seems to exist solely to demonstrate all of the worst possible traits of a Spartan-III soldier.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: The music that plays when you start the game.
  • Player Punch: Sure, it could be said that the entire game is one big Player Punch, what with Reach falling and all of Noble Team dying, but the strongest punch is arguably Kat's death.
  • Ruined FOREVER: The Fan Dumb's reaction to the addition of reticle bloom and the various Armor Abilities in the Beta. Wild accusations were leveled at Bungie for trying to copy Modern Warfare. Ironically, those same accusations are now once again flying regarding the release of Halo 4.
  • "Stop Having Fun!" Guys: Since Modern Warfare 2 was Serious Business, and Reach is now very popular, many of the "Stop Having Fun!" Guys from the former have now migrated to the latter, much to the chagrin of veteran Halo players.
    • Scrubs: Like with any popular game, they always appear. Complaining about things they never take the time to learn the weaknesses of (Example: Taking three steps back and not moving as they stare at another in player Armor Lock as though they were hypnotized by it, dying that way (be it an Armor Locker's teammate or an opportunistic enemy or even the Armor Locker popping out and killing his opponent himself), and then complaining about it on the Bungie forums.
    • The "Stop Having Fun!" Guys eventually whined so loudly about reticle bloom that 343 added a special playlist just for them where the DMR is perfectly accurate no matter how fast you fire it because everyone knows that any degree of randomness or balance simply rewards less skilled players, and we can't have that.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: Ghosts and Glass bears more than a passing resemblance to Fairytale from Shrek.
  • That One Achievement: "If They Came To Hear Me Beg", an achievement that requires the player to land on, and assassinate, an Elite at the end of a fall which would otherwise kill the player (most players tend to try for it at the beginning of the penultimate mission). Sounds simple enough. What makes it so Nintendo Hard is that it's so damn random: not just getting the kill itself (your target Elite tends to move away from where he was when you jumped[3]), but moreso getting the achievement to register. Reportedly the most reliable way to get it is to take a non-sprinting leap off the cliff and perform the Goomba Stomp animation (which is either completely random or tied to a very small window of you pressing "melee" just above the Elite) when you land.
    • Of course, adding to the random glitchiness, there are plenty of people who have gotten it other ways. This troper's co-op buddy got the achievement by chasing after the Zealot on "Tip of the Spear" and assassinating it (standard backstab animation at ground level) just as it was about to vanish from the level.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Some gamers dislike the new ranking system because it's tied to your Credit accumulation, and not actual skill or kill/death ratios like in Halo 3. Except the "TrueSkill" system is still in place, just running behind the scenes as opposed to being displayed in-game.
  • Too Cool to Live: Everyone on Noble Team except Jun.
Back to Halo: Reach
  1. ↑ The seventh, Evade, is not available in the campaign at all.
  2. ↑ If you still don't get it, days only have 24 hours on Earth.
  3. ↑ So be prepared to hilariously die on the ground behind him without him noticing.
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