Without nostalgia, I don't understand why people prefer 3 over Reach.

[Ce Brave Feykro]

I might be wrong but I feel like a lot more people are play H3 than Reach.

I'm not gonna talk about the campaign because that's very subjective in my opinion. As far as multiplayer is concerned, though halo 3 was my first xbox 360 game and I love it, I do think the Reach multiplayer experience is much better. I feel like everything looks and feels better, I also think fights are clearer.

People seem to take issue with the bloom which I don't think is a big deal and is not turned on in some competitive game modes. People also seem to hate the run, but since you pick between that, a Jetpack, a shield, a bubble (y'know, like the one from H3) and a hologram, I feel like it adds strategy and tactics to the game. I can't count how many fights I won simply because they thought I had run and ended up shooting my hologram giving me a window to kill them.

The maps of Halo 3 are great, but I feel like Halo Reach's maps were just as good.

So now that you can litterally compare side by side, why would you pick Halo 3 over reach ?

[Chef Vic]

Reach has garbage maps, the DMR just doesn’t feel fun to use, I don’t like the abilities because they just make it more difficult to get kills instead of being fun to use and the art style looks almost cod like. Halo 3 has a better and bigger sandbox, better maps, also the art is 100x better.

[Chef Vic]

If you like really bland grey colors, lame weapons, bad map design and frustrating armor abilities then reach is your game.

[H1tSc4n]

Yeah i agree with this post. Reach's multiplayer feels a lot more fun to me.

Guns feel a lot more usable and powerful. Sure the DMR is fantastic but all guns have a use, while in halo 3 you either use the BR, a power weapon, or die.

[Tohur]

its because Halo 3 was most peoples first Halo game and they have the nostalgia blinders on. I been playing Halo since OG xbox and frankly even though Halo hit its peak with Halo 3 its actually at the bottom of the list for me multiplayer wise right along with Halo 4. Halo 3 is actually when Halo started its great decline and frankly Halo 2 was a better game IMO.

[II Wingless II]

Halo Reach is dog**** in my opinion. I hate everything about it except the campaign. It somehow manages to combine the worst aspects of every game and bundles them into one.

[MechaSalvo]

reach is better

[Ce Brave Feykro]

>DMR doesn't feel fun to use
As I said, bloom disabled in competitive modes, and it feels the same if not better than in H3

>Abilities bad
I disagree, they bring diversity and a lot of cool ♥♥♥♥ like baiting a ghost into crashing on your power shield. It's more depth and more fun, and neither (except for the bubble from H3) makes it harder to kill an ennemy in normal, 1v1 condition. If someone shield, reload and plasma grenade.

>Art style like CoD
I'm not sure we've played the same game because Halo 3 feels a lot more grey and dark than reach which has a lot more color most of the time, especially in the campaign.

>Bad maps
No. Sword base is great, Reflexion is great, Powerhouse is great, Countdown is great, Anchor 9 is great and there are a ton of OG maps like H3's anchor or H1's battle creek. You also have great invasion maps like the Spire tower. And the legendary Hemorrhage for sniper rounds, ofc.

>It's a bad game
I don't think it's a good argument to make on my end, but you're gonna need more than that to convince me that a game with 91% on metacritic is ♥♥♥♥. Many people, me included, consider it the pinnacle of the series with the best forge, story and multiplayer of all halo games and once again, I'm having a hard time believing so many people hold such a bad game in such a high regard.

[Charu]

Halo 3 will always be the better game (FOR ME) simply due to maps not being designed to always have sprint.

If you've noticed, a lot of Reach maps have a TON of open space since Bungie purposely designed them with sprint in mind. Doesn't help that the starting precision weapon, the DMR, is hitscan and is practically a laser. Add on Reach's bloom and you have a recipe for a game that killed it's own MP before it even started.

There's a lot of folks that like the game for what it is, but it's definitely not the same feel as Halo 3's mechanics. There's a lot more mobility options in Halo 3 than there are in Reach, which is another factor going against Reach's MP.

...

The campaign is pretty good though. That's really the only thing I absolutely think the game did better than 3. Lore-wise, it retconned Fall of Reach pretty hard so it's got some lore purist angry, but it's a good campaign for what it's worth.

[Lodreus]

Because Halo 3 was my first Halo game. I'd say Halo 3 for campaign and Reach for multiplayer.

[Mistfox]

No nostalgia for me. First time Halo 3 is on PC, which might drive the curve up since it's the first time us PC users are playing it.

[Ce Brave Feykro]

Charu:
> I see the open spaces as sight lines for long range battle, and coming back to halo 3 I feel like it's more cluttered. It's two different game design but I much prefer Halo Reach's though I would agree Sprint is often a tempting option.

>How does Reach have less mobility options than halo 3? You've got sprint and jetpacks on every map and a lot of vehicles.

Now I understand Reach may be too far from 3 for a lot of people but I still think it's a better experience that aged less. I also don't see how the DMR being a hitscan is problematic.

[Schmucko Fcko]

Halo 3 is just better for comp, faster initial movement speeds no sprint, higher jumping, no bloom, ect it's also better for those looking for the OG classic Halo experience but also trying to play casual gametypes too without armor abilities for the "arena feel" still intact. For instance big team battle, in halo 3 there is no randomness for armor abilities (no armor lock or any other armor ability on spawn). Everyone on the map has to look for equipment. It's just a matter of preference which is great since we have most halo games on MCC

[Cody]

Originally posted by H1tSc4n:

Yeah i agree with this post. Reach's multiplayer feels a lot more fun to me.

Guns feel a lot more usable and powerful. Sure the DMR is fantastic but all guns have a use, while in halo 3 you either use the BR, a power weapon, or die.

Wrong. More weapons in H3 are viable compared to Reach.

[Winblows]

Originally posted by Ce Brave Feykro:

Charu:
> I see the open spaces as sight lines for long range battle, and coming back to halo 3 I feel like it's more cluttered. It's two different game design but I much prefer Halo Reach's though I would agree Sprint is often a tempting option.

>How does Reach have less mobility options than halo 3? You've got sprint and jetpacks on every map and a lot of vehicles.

Now I understand Reach may be too far from 3 for a lot of people but I still think it's a better experience that aged less. I also don't see how the DMR being a hitscan is problematic.

because you dont have to lead your shots or make sure you land all the bullets in the burst, lower skill ceiling

[jimmypage]

reach is frustrating on m+kb due to bloom. controller's aim assist makes bloom's effects feel reduced, but the annoyance of bloom in an arena shooter like halo is amplified without aim assist. h3 actually had a decent amount of backlash at release from people super familiar with h2 because most of the guns in h3 were largely weaker and less accurate versions of their h2 incarnations. for example, the h3 br was less accurate and had a slower projectile. whereas h2 heavily encouraged and rewarded exceptional aim, h3 was a bit more unreliable at times and slower due to this uncertainty and weaker gun roster. despite this, people felt at large that the differences were not so extreme as to not play h3 over h2.

these problems were amplified upon the release of reach. weapons are now subjected to bloom with long pauses between good accuracy in shots, significantly slowing down gameplay. while alone, hitscan weapons are not a problem in my opinion (as h2 already had EXTREMELY fast projectiles), this in conjunction with bloom's inaccuracy encouraged long range, slow gameplay not endemic to the arena based h2/h3 experience of largely med/close range fights with precision weapons. things like slower movement speed and lower jump height also contributed to the slower gameplay in a large way, but i think these points have been beaten to death at this point.

armor abilities completely destroyed map balance. hologram, active camo, etc are so bad compared to sprint or jetpack for experienced players. since a lot of maps in reach are ported over from previous titles (with a faster movespeed and jump height in mind), you can't make a lot of jumps as you would in previous titles. of course, not without jetpack. on these maps, jetpack is broken. on other maps that are much flatter(tends to be newer, non-ported maps), sprint largely slows gameplay DOWN. since reach's mechanics encourage slow, long range, campy combat, sprint is stupid good at rounding corners and breaking sightlines. this means kills that would have been confirmed and potetinaly crucial in previous titles no longer happen, slowing down gameplay. this in conjunction with the inability to shoot due to the animation of running, thus punishing running into fights, AND larger maps to attempt to balance sprint, just significantly slows down gameplay for the worse.

something worth mentioning for map design is that the vertical maps are absolutely broken by jetpack and horizontal maps are broken by sprint.

when a company builds up a fairly consistent gameplay pattern over 6 years and 3 games and then noticeably changes the formula , people will be upset as the game is not the same anymore. rightfully so as reach is noticeably different from the arena shooter game of previous halos.

if anyone is familiar with super smash bros, an apt comparison would be between melee and brawl and 3 and reach (2 compared to melee would be a better comparison but not necessary for this purpose). brawl housed new gamemodes like the subspace emissary, which was vastly improved from melee's adventure mode, more items, more options, more maps, more/ a better trophy system, a map editor etc. but things like lack of skill intensive options (no wavesdashing for example), slower fall speed, lack of options for punishes etc, killed the game competitvely and hurt the game for experienced, non-competitive players. melee and ultimate are the only two games still played in any serious capacity today. similarly, reach had a much better firefight, much better forge, better custom games, etc. but the base gameplay was much much slower and random than previous games and less skill intensive, so the competitive scene vanished super quickly, just like in reach. of course, these changes trickled down to the core playerbase and more experienced players did not enjoy the gameplay changes for reasons similar to the melee/brawl transition. unsurprisingly, ultimate's success is because hal attempted to take a lot of inspiration from melee (brawl and 4 have gone with the wind) and is a relevant game again. hopefully infinite can learn from the missteps of other series.