Always love and appreciate your analysis. Btw, we intended infinite spawning of Covenant on the beach in Long Night of Solace. Something or someone changed it.

To this day “Slipspace Rupture Detected” is the most blood chilling moment for me

Being a Hungarian i remember when I first played Reach and I heard the civilians speak my language. That some places are named after Hungarian cities I giggled and laughed so much in joy. Later I learned that Reach was originally first settled by Hungarians made me love Reach even more, not to mention that Jorge is from Reach which means he could be of Hungarian descent made me love him a lot more and now he is one of my all time favourite Halo characters. So let me translate some of the Hungarian in the game and help with pronunciations a bit. The farmers: "Mi nem csináltunk semmit" ( we didn't do anything) "Nem akartok meghalni?" ( you don't wanna die) (akartok is you but in it's prulal form) Jorge: "Mit keresetek itt?!" (what are you doing here?!) quite obvious because Carter asked him to say that. "Tegnap este a barátomat és a családját, se költözés." ( last night my friend and his family no moving ( as in moving house ) let me note that this is said with a pretty bad grammar plus I cant make out what he is saying after "se költözés" Jorge: 'Azt mondtam befelé, gyerünk!" ( I said get inside, now!") It's funny that the farmer did not say that his friend and his family was kidnapped or killed or he might have but the voice actor swallowed all his words after the "se költözés" part. The girl named Sára: "Ne, menjen innen! Ne, hagyon békén! Kérem ne! Jaj ne!" (No, go away! No leave me alone! Please no! Oh no!) the "Oh no" makes me laugh with that thick and fake slavic accent, which makes no sense to have, but for some reason they always portray us with a weird slavic accent. "Még.....itt vannak." ( They.....are still here.) After she is rescued Jorge: "Engem Jorgenak hívnak." (My name is Jorge) ( A more literal translation would be: They call me Jorge) Sára: "Sára." (of course) Jorge: "Sára? Szép, határozott név." (Sára? A nice and firm name) ( unfortunately "határozott" can be translated into a lot of words in English so I chose what sounded the best for me) The part after this is funny because Sára says "Tengeri" when she should be saying Hungary though the country on Reach might actually be called Tengeri, which is once again funny because "Tengeri" means some like "Of the sea" or "From the sea" as in something that lives or comes from the sea. So now for some pronounciations. The "S" in Hungarian is pronounced as the English "Sh" as in Shovel. The "G" in Hungarian is pronounced as the "g" in garden. The "Á" is simply just say Ah. The "E" is pronounced as the "e" in elevator Hope that helps a little with Visegrád and Sopron There is also Farkas lake which means Wolf lake. Lake in Hungarian is called Tó which is pronounced as Tow. Those are the things I could remember that are in the game, I hope I helped a little and sorry for any grammatical errors, I'm sure there are a lot of them. And of course thank you for the great video.

Man could you imagine if you didn’t face any enemy’s until the elites ambush you at the end of winter contingency

With Kats death, I always thought of it as not everyone gets a 'good' death, this is war, not everyone who dies has a heroic death like Jorge, sometimes it's unfair. in a blink they're gone and that no-one, not even a spartan with all the training and state of the art armour can prevent that. Just cut down in the middle of a sentence. Another point is to show just how ruthless the Covenant are, they were pulling out all their units, about to glass the city, but a phantom spotted some Spartans retreating and decided to stop just to shoot them in the back, the city was about to get glassed, the covenant had no idea there was a bunker there, so it would be safe to assume they would die in the glassing, however the elite wanted to get that shot in.

I’m kinda glad the Exodus fly by is a chain gun and not a grenade launcher falcon. You barely get to kill anything with the chain gun as you witness the sheer chaos. Which just pushes the metaphor of hopelessly helping

The target locator actually recharges as you proceed into each of the areas, for 3 times to be exact (once at AA gun, once at the COMMs array, and once when you head back to the SWORD base).

Finally playing Reach when it came out on the PC, it made me sad for what we could have had if Bungie had remained a game developer instead of a live-service provider. When compared to the mainline trilogy, it showed that they were capable of more than just a campy sci-fi shooter with some real emotional depth.

I can elaborate on the "Latchkey" discovery a bit as it's something you may really need to delve into if you want to get the full story. Rather it's a fan theory supported with supporting lore from the Fall of Reach novel and the game that honestly ties the two up together quite nicely. In the novel Reach is the strongest military outpost Humanity has left. The original plan to end the war is to use Reach as a staging ground for Operation: Red Flag in which the UNSC would use hundreds of Spartans and specially modified ship to capturing a Covenant-Hierarch and bring the Covenant to the negotiating table. That of course is stopped by the Covenants discovery of Reach, after a space battle and the *Long-Night-of-Solace* Battlegroup searching for Forerunner tech. When Reach starts to get hot, the UNSC hopes that they can destroy the Super-Carrier without Reach being compromised. After its destruction with the *Fleet of Particular Justice* and the soon to be Arbiter arriving, they hope *Red Flag* has just arrived on their door step and commit most of the forces to the battle. When it's clear Reach and everyone there are simply being annihilated, they switch to retreating and evacuation all the resources of *Red Flag* that haven't been destroyed. Including the experimental-ship and her Captain. The Latchkey the Halsey and Cortana found from that Forerunner ship thanks to the scientist the was probably coordinates, and little did they know or perhaps they even did, that on the other side of it was going to be Halo. So why not send an the remains of Red Flag which were trying to escape anyway, to try and salvage victory from a back-breaking defeat.: Experimental Ship and Good Captain - *Keyes and the Autumn* AI with critical knowledge about the Forerunners - *Cortana and why she's so important* Hundreds of Spartans - *John-117 considering he's all that's left/aboard the Autumn (not entirely true but I digress).* If you don't believe me consider this. Both in the books and games, Cortana is patterned off of Halsey's mind. Both show traits and characteristics of acting without others authority for doing what is right, in almost all of the games. Would Halsey, someone who interferes with military operations twice in the game and more than a few times in the lore, simply allow an opportunity for humanity to regain a fighting advantage simply slip by? *Finding Halo wasn't an accident. Bringing the Covenant along for the discovery was.*

I like the subtle nod to Marty O Donnell at 1:27:52 as one of your marines is Lt. O Donnell and their little callsign is MRTY

Love Halo Reach! First played it with my Stepbrother Alex when it first released. RIP Alex. Still miss you bro.

I actually think the cutscene at the start of tip of the spear was great. It might not be how future wars would be fought but it's exactly how they're fought in halo wars 1 and 2. I grew up on those games nearly as much as mainline halo games so seeing the same battles I used to control in halo wars being recreated in a cutscene linked both series together for me

Honestly I'm with Raycevick where I think that Winter Contingency would have been better if the mission was played in reverse. You fly right to the relay station, infiltrate it and then you're ambushed by the Elite Zealot squad. Massive panic that the Covenant are on Reach and then you spend the rest of the mission chasing down the fleeing Zealots as they evacuate with their intel to stop them reporting back to The Covenant.

I was running out of Halo Reach reviews to watch through for the 50th time. This is a long one, and a good one. Thanks!

"It's good," alright everyone, pack it up, let's go home. 😜

Someone may have already said it in the comments, sorry for not checking that thoroughly. Something you didn't touch on about the introduction cutscene that I feel is really important is the helmet. You buy Reach, at the time or later. The first thing you do isn't launching the campaign. "Wow, I get to make my own Spartan for this campaign????!?" So you open the customisation menu, and make your own Spartan. You do the armour, the helmet, the colour, THEN you launch the campaign. And the first thing you see in the opening is a clear shot of the super-cool Spartan you made, probably KIA. That hits HARD. Love it.

10 years later and Kats death still hits hard 💔 Jorge was noble but Kats had finality to it

I wonder if the lone wolf line was also meant to be a bit of a nod to the fact that the player likely played the previous games, where chief does a whole lot of missions and makes a lot of important milestones in the war all in his own.

This is excellently timed, I just finished Reach for the first time yesterday and ADORE it!

Im late to this video, but the ending speech from Halsey gets me emotional every time. Its such a sad yet hopeful ending that speaks to the grim reality of the war between the covenant and humanity. Noble Six symbolizes success through failure and human resolve in its best form. Six was so important to the entirety of Halo and its what makes Reach my favorite Halo. Sure Reach has its issues but it feels like the perfect prequel that builds the entire Halo story perfectly.

This is such an outstanding overview of one of my favorite FPS games. I love the thoughtful analysis and consistent quality in all of your Halo videos, and the fact that you're willing to put in the effort for long-form content. Halo's lore is probably my favorite story of all time (slightly ahead of The Dark Tower). And while, like most fans, I was disappointed with the deviation from the book, I'm able to overlook the differences because the game is so fun and engaging. It's definitely the one I come back to most often in the MCC.

Reach was my first Halo campaign. Because of it, it's my favorite halo campaign. The fact that it was a prequel and featured different characters helped too, I didnt feel like I was out of the loop in the story of master chief and the main halo games. And not knowing the story of reach beforehand caused it to leave a lasting impact. My only complaint was that the first zealot cutscene wasnt the games introduction to the elites or better yet the Covenant.

for Long Night of Solace 343i broke portions of the game that caused some bugs. The infinite waves of Covenant and Marines now never appear, the Seraphs flying overhead don’t either and the AA guns don’t fire. You can also see a bug from this update in Tip of the Spear where the frigates’ cannons fire random projectiles rather than their UNSC cannon rounds

Thanks for this incredible work! The attention to detail combined with the sheer length of this video really showcases your dedication to the series. All Halo lore lovers are lucky to have someone like you on our side.

The ending of Long Night of Solace is my favorite. You think you've just beaten the game with the story wrapping up in a noble (pun intended) self-sacrifice, only for dozens of the thing you just spent 3 missions fighting to destroy to show up.

Exodus was always my favourite Reach mission. Theres just something about taking a hyper-lethal spartan and takimg away all the weapons he usually has at his disposal, and just dropping him in a suburban warzone

Fun fact about emiles Helmet, if it was Anything else, emile wouldve been Repremanded for Vandalizing ONI property (yes, his EVA helmet is ONI property) but since his carving had a great intimidating factor, he was allowed to Keep it. Basically, ONI said "Youre not supposed to do that to your equipment, but since it looks badass, we'll allow it"

Actually I could see the Covenant full on charging at the UNSC like that because the Elites especially like “honor” based combat. Which would promote the UNSC to do the same.

One of my favorite Legendary campaign runs ever. What a great game...

For some of us older players, the space battle at the start of Long Night: I really hoped it would be more developed, in the game and after. I would have loved Bungie bringing back the Space Fighter genre, exemplified by the Wing Commander series (or X-wing/TIE Fighter). It was not to be. They gave us a bit of a slog with it that added little. Still hoping for some return to the genre someday!

1:10:20 basically an airliner has a tail fire and plunges into the water from low altitude. Realistically there would be many survivors. Hypothetically, trying to rescue them would be putting rescue craft at risk, so the UNSC just let 500+ people drown

My friend has a massive amount or nostalgia for this game, and a few days ago he got me to play coop with him through the campaign in one night. Let’s just say that’s he’s way more enthusiastic about it than I am 😂

*48:51** I just tested it in MCC and it still worked like a charm. If you kill the Wraith enemies will keep being dropped off from the beach and former Wraith location.*

Something I enjoy about the winter contingency cutscene but becomes more evident on repeat playthroughs is around Emile's remark of "Big man forgets what he is sometimes" about Jorge. I'm sure he intends it as "He forgets he's a Spartan" but as you play the game you realize that no, "Big man" remembers just fine what he is and arguably keeps his humanity the best out of all of noble team - made a little more pointed as it comes from Emile who arguably does so the least.

According to books released under 343's Halo, Jun went off to help create the SPARTAN-IV program.

I like how desperate the story is. Noble team and the humans in general are extremely resourceful and successfully fight back, only for the covenant to immediately counter attack in devastating fashion. It's a dark parallel to Halo CE. It seems the harder you fight the more hopeless this situation becomes.

I'm always impressed with how thoughtful your Halo analyses are while being accessible, it would be very easy to make something less developed.

Thanks for this video man!!! I'm also hungarian like the guy who transleted the hungarian dialogs, I'm really greatful for this well made video :) I wish the best of luck to you

Never forget about Reach 🫡❤️ noble team and all unsc soldiers who died fighting on reach fought a war they knew they couldn’t win just buying us enough time to ensure we didn’t completely become extinct. From the point Noble 6 made the decision to stay behind and cover the ship he unknowingly gave us halo as we all knew and love (plus how ever we feel about it today) the importance of this stand I believe isn’t stated enough in the halo community. There would be no halo community without this.

LETS GOOOO!! These long videos are the best 🤙🏻

Excellent video. Thanks for making it. Reach is so sad but also the most beautiful Halo...❤

47:51 If you capture the Wraith, you can maneuver it through the rocks, and use it to storm the beach. Then use it to take out the waves of Covenant.

I really liked the entire video. Pointing out small things within each levels of the campaign and giving a more in depth details within each mission. Halo reach I have put around 12k hours in the game and played the campaign countless amount of times. Seeing this video still made me learn a few things I haven't noticed yet in small details about the campaign and just makes me appreciate more my absolute favorite game. The critiques are fair and explanations of everything is very well done. I'll be watching your halo 3 video next

Marty o donnel either you love his music or you just never heard of his music.

1:27:45 Noticed one of the ODST's on the tank is named 1Lt O'Donnell and his abbreviated 1st name is MRTY

The "wonderfully jaunty music" in the New Alexandria elevator? Yeah, that's an old commercial jingle Marty O'Donnell wrote years before he worked for Bungie.

Nightfall was the hardest level for my friend and I on our Lasso playthrough of the Halo games. We spent at least a week trying to complete that level, if not longer.

Like you, I adore this game, and I also share your puzzlement at a few of the moments in the first half of the game being played so flat and matter-of-fact rather than being played up for effect, the reveal of the Covenant on Winter Contingency and the destruction of the spire in Tip of the Spear being my go-to examples. In the latter case, something dramatic happens right afterwards, but it's still like, clearly this was a creative choice to have everyone be professionals and affect that kind of Homeworld everyone-is-cool-and-calm thing, which then shatters when things go south. But when the game really lets the emotion go and plays things up, well, we have some of the most iconic moments in the franchise. "Tell 'em to make it count." Also I have to say, the attention to detail proves Bungie's, and your, love and dedication to the work you both produced here. Things like making a point out of Kat's legendarily infamous and ridiculous driving, how she's somehow worse at it than the Halo 2 and 3 marines, bring back nostalgic memories as well as establish for viewers yet again why your insights are so dead-on. You've pointed out many details about the levels that, despite having played the game for over a decade off and on, I never noticed. Also, the charming Britishisms were charming and British, that's all I got tbh.

Till this day, I still think Noble 6 screwed up by not just heading for Halsey's bunker after the Pillar of Autumn launched. To survive, all he had to do was to go back into the base to not be seen from the sky, then get underground, and wait out the Covenant assault squads. And if they remained on Reach, he'd be able to gradually pick them off. If they glassed Reach, he's have been deep enough underground in Halsey's bunker to still survive.

AMAZING review of this fantastic game! I wish we had more games like this, can't wait to watch your next game breakdown!

just played through this again and damn still love this great story

I never understood how bungie despite all their great achievements with ai never managed to make friendly ai at least ok at driving. How is it so horrendous? Enemy ai doesnt seem to have that problem

Just beat reach on legendary yesterday. Definitely not the best halo game, especially multiplayer, but I’ll always love its campaign and the journey of noble team. Remember reach.

Pretty sure the latchkey discovery is the location of Installation 04, thus a pivotal aspect in changing the direction of the whole war

Six's end is also eluded to in the first mission. He gets pinned down by an Elite who attempts to stab him with a Energy Wrist blade, he holds them off for a moment. In the first mission, he's saved by Carter, but obviously in the last mission, without his team, his fate is assured.

Havent played halo since shorty after the release of reach. Recently got snother Xbox and reach and infinite. Man they bring me back ESPECIALLY reach. An incredible game

Fun fact about Nightfall: The reason it feels like an homage to Truth and Reconciliation is because it is XD

For the Banshees in the underground area of "The Package" You don't even need to use a plasma pistol. You can use the often overlooked emp feature of the grenade launcher to bring them down too. Fairly certain there was a huge lore easter egg that involved 4 players and a Banshee(s?) I vaguely remember my friends and I doing that as kids.

10:22 if you look closely, you actually notice Jorge look up a bit too when the girl says “they’re still here” and he actually hears the elite before it drops on them.

In the final cutscene, the clouds hanging over Reach are shaped like Covenant cruisers.

Although i read the books first so I know the fall of reach went a little differently than the game portrayed it, but I truly loved it. I went in already knowing it was a completely loosing fight no matter what, I was blown away at the story they created.

last I checked in MCC that dropship on the beach of Long Night of Solace is broken with a recent update. So it's not just you. Do you have a date of when you recorded that footage? It be useful for the MCC team

This game is definitely a "Best Of" for the series, as in it was designed to put you in scenarios that are similar to what you had in earlier games, but without the downsides/debuffs/issues that are associated with each of them. If the entire series could be re-worked with the game engine, physics, weapons, vehicles, and general stage moment-to-moment design that was used in Reach, that would be the best thing to ever happen to Halo. That's really why I like the idea of the Halo Reborn mod, I'm hoping things go smoothly for the team working on that.

This is an amazing video essay. Keep up the excellent work.

My only complaint with what I consider to be the perfect Halo game is that they could not do some of the insurrectionist level at the beginning Bungie had blocked out concept art and unused characters (Rosalinda-A334). I really think if Reach *had* started with Noble combatting insurrectionists, the reveal of and subsequent conquest by the Covenant would have hit a lot harder.

Another fantastic video man, keep up the great work

I got MCC on PC and I just started on the journey of playing halo again. I played Halo 2 and Halo 3 because my friend had a 360 but I never finished the games all the way through. I finished Reach last night and it such a good game and story. Maybe if I can get good enough I’ll have to beat it on Legendary lol

22:03 "someone should take a picture" because it will definetly last longer

I want a noble six game about his career before Reach and him joining noble team so bad

slipspace rupture detected slipspace rupture detected slipspace rupture detected ... that scene still gives me chills.

I set up macros on my mmo mouse for all the different pieces of equipment in Halo Infinite. You're right, the grappling is by far the best, but on legendary the other ones can come in handy for sure. It's also very cool to use all the different equipment in concert.

you should do videos comparing the different enemy types through the franchise and how they are used and change.

This is the game I played as a kid, not the mainstream games, but reach, on my 360.

9:35 where did the UNSC Trooper come from? Never have seen one there in the Thousands of times I've played Reach.

Emile actually kills the elite who stabs him, with his dagger. his deadbody and energy sword can be found next the to MAC gun

When Carter says “I’m just glad to have Noble back up to full strength” in the beginning is foreshadowing of what’s to come.

After doing some thinking I really like this video and the way it looks back honestly on Halo:Reach's campaign. The only thing I think differently on is The package. The levels up until then have been overwhelming defeat after defeat and at that point we're basically grasping at straws. The package is the final nail in the coffin. That mission's slower and draws home the fact that there is no salvaging it, nothing on the planet matters except getting this one discovery off the planet. The tank section lets you see the destruction on the ground while New Alexandria shows you it on a broad scale. The part within sword base shows you what is left after the covenant reaches you and shows you what will be your ultimate fate. However the last portion of the mission cements that it will be fine as long as you can finish this last mission. It's a similar thing to Kat's question at the end of New Alexandria. "I know we're losing, I want to know if we've lost" I think she was referring to the war as a whole. More along the lines of "If reach falls does the rest of humanity?" This mission ends with reassurance in the barest sense that "Even when we fall. Humanity will not be lost." However that's just my take.

My younger brother just started playing Reach for the first time and he likes it! Woo! lmao🔥 love your videos!

I walkways used The Target Locator in Sword Base for everything BUT those two wraiths. I just hijack the wraiths and use the DMR and then I drive to the anti air cannon to the east and use it to trivialize that entire section with the elite general and rangers.

This campaign felt too short to me. Then when I looked up how much time I played I realized it just felt short cause I was having so much fun.

Kat bad driving joke was so funny

You can save the troop transport warthog and use it the whole vehicle section of the mission

this needs more attention, good work Ben!

It should be noted that most of the "Marines" in Reach are actually UNSC Army troopers. There are some Marines in the game, notably toward the end (the soldiers accompanying Keyes on his Pelican when he retrieves the Cortana fragment from Six are Marines) but through most of the game they're army.

I also go left on Sword Base every single time and didn’t know Kat’s behavior was dynamic until just now.

Here I am walking home thinking about halo reach's storyline and voilà the perfect video

This is actually a warthog on the spire level, which makes it easier. It’s also the easiest place to hijack a banshee. Also a revenant can be glitched into the first hunter area to make quick work of them lol

I disagree on the battle in Tip of the Spear. I think the best thing they could have done would be to pay homage to the tank battle on The Ark, or the two scarabs on The Covenant. Reach’s first Vidoc went on and on about how with the improved engine they were capable of putting more AI in encounters than ever before, allowing for giant battles, but I feel Reach never made use of that, and it was already lacking a good tank mission.

On the tip of spear, there are some trucks available to drive on last bit

Can you make one for halo3 odst because that my favorite halo and still wondering why when your the rookie in sublevel 9 a Spartan is assigned to make sure the doctor is dead then he tries to kill the rookie for knowing to much

Well done Sir 👏 fantastic video

also the space fight is broken in MCC, its harder based on framrate. It's a reach wide issue that is most visible there

Love this video ❤ added to my halo playlist

Recently played through Reach again, got that infinite spawn on Long Night of Solace on MCC of the game. Quite interesting that you couldn't get it at all

"No I'm gonna steal it back" banger fucking line

In Tip of the Spear, after giving it some thought, it starts to make sense why they resorted to a massed charge. The surrounding areas around the invasion force were inaccesible by air, were situated in the middle of a plateau surrounded by sheer mountains with very few if not only one entrance into the area. Any air vehicles would be shot down flying over the mountains, stealth teams wouldnt be able to scale them quick enough to avoid detection while maintaining a force large enough to detroy the entire base, and sneaking to the base was out of the question due to superior covenant scanning tech. With all that in mind, in order to achieve a fast and hard strike, they would be forced to perform a massed charge from the only viable entrance, which is why we see the battle stretch across the plateau at the start of the mission. Our force was literally the tip of the spear followed by the rest of the unsc forces. And finally we see just how desperate the unsc is with the closeup of a mongoose alongside the warthogs and scorpions. They pulled together everthing they could at the last possible moment, which means they didnt have time to pull together for a better attack plan.

kats death didn't come out of nowhere, she said they'd be able to track that signal

I will literally never play halo but the lore is interesting and I can actually participate in conversations with my friends now.

Called the troopers marines and the DMR the BR. Still love this channel tho 🫶🏼

There shoulda been a mission where we got odst to drop pod down as reinforcements