Halo: Legends [Review] -Spoiler Free

[larch]

Halo Legends is a collection of seven animated short films set in the Halo science-fiction universe. Financed by Halo franchise overseer 343 Industries, the stories were created by five Japanese production houses: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation. Shinji Aramaki, creator and director of Appleseed and Appleseed Ex Machina, serves as the project’s creative director. The idea for an anime compilation existed for years before there was momentum for the project. 343 Creative director Frank O’Connor produced story outlines or finished scripts that the production houses animated in a variety of styles

Now ordinarily I would be pretty skeptical about something like this due in part to the failures of other game titles that tried to make the jump from gaming platform to animated media format. Especially when Western and Eastern animation studios come together, Deadspace being a prime example of such a failure but on the flip side you get great success stories like The Animatrix and Batman Gotham Knight. Good examples of what can be done when Western and Eastern companies come together. So here is my review of Halo: Legends that includes a image, plot synopsis, mini review and rating out of 5.

“The Babysitter”
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“Babysitters” follows a squad of four Orbital Drop Shock Troopers or Helljumpers. The squad is composed of Private O’Brien, Dutch (from Halo 3: ODST), Master Sergeant Cortez, and Corporal Checkman. O’Brien is being replaced as the squad’s sniper by Cal-141, a SPARTAN-II, and is now the backup. The squad is sent into a Covenant zone under the cover of a meteor shower to eliminate a Prophet. Produced by Eiko Tanaka and directed by Toshiyuki Kanno.

“The Babysitters” starts off boring, but slowly picks up the pace as the story develops. The story only start push the right buttons mid way through and they even managed some character development in the short time span.The art and design also move from rather mediocre to simply amazing, and you can see that Studio 4C tried out different animation techniques. There is also a rather interesting twist to the story at the end.

• Score: 4/5

“The Dual”

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Produced by Mitsuhisa Ishikawa and directed by Hiroshi Yamazaki, with creative supervision by Mamoru Oshii follows an Arbiter named Fal who does not want to follow the Covenant religion. One of the Prophets accuses Fal of heresy. Fal will not yield and the Prophet is forced to send another Elite to kill Fal.

“The Dual” was entirely created in CG, but they put a different spin on the overall feel and design by putting some kind of filter over it giving it the look and feel of a moving oil painting. It is a rather weird art style to say the least, but after a short while you get used to it. The overall story and action sequences were brilliantly, and the most interesting part about this story is how they put a Samurai styled spin on “The Dual” definitely also one of my favorites.

• Score: 5/5

“The package”
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On board a cloaked human ship, a group of elite super soldiers called Spartans (John-117/Master Chief, Frederic-104, Kelly-087, Arthur-079 and Solomon-069) are briefed by an intelligence officer about their mission. A Covenant fleet is momentarily trapped in the system, and is carrying an important “package” the Spartans must retrieve. The ship decloaks and deploys the Spartans in small ships called Booster Frames. Solomon detects the package on one of the ships.

Entirely rendered in CG or to be more precise cell shaded. From a technical aspect it really does look great and is the best looking episode of the bunch, the episode even pays homage to the Halo franchise by showing off some of the weaponry that the Spartans uses and even includes a couple of shots of your heroes in action while in first person mode Halo 3 style.

Score: 4/5

“Origins” 1 & 2
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On board the ship Forward Unto Dawn , the artificial intelligence Cortana and Master Chief are stranded after the events of Halo 3. Cortana muses on her existence and what she has learned about the noble and ancient race known as the Forerunners. Cortana narrates past events: thousands of years ago, the Forerunners were a great civilization, but they came under attack by the parasitic Flood. The Forerunner underestimated the Flood, by which time it had spread, gaining the knowledge of the life it consumed. Though the Forerunners fought bravely, but realized it was a futile fight. After trying other methods, they developed a weapon of last resort; an array of ringed megastructures or Halos that would destroy the Flood and their food supply—every sentient creature in the galaxy. While the Flood and Forerunner were wiped out by the Halo Array’s activation, the Forerunners reseeded cataloged life throughout the galaxy.

Both episodes of “Origins” is basically a background story of the world and universe that Halo set in. It is your standard post-apocalyptic story, but really well paced and narrated and fills in the blanks for those who haven’t played any of the Halo games. It has a great soundtrack and really brings back some fond memories of the Halo universe. The animation however is not on the same level as the other episodes.​

• Score: 4/5

 

[larch]

“Homecoming”
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Produced by Bee Train productions Inc. with Production I.G and executive produced by Koichi Mashimo, written by Hiroyuki Kawasaki and directed Koji Sawai.Focused on the tragedies involving the SPARTAN-II recruitment in 2517, and the SPARTANs coming to terms with their origins

Homecoming is a recollection of a female Spartan’s training program, her escape, and her subsequent return to the spartan project with the knowledge that the spartan program is her “real”home. This is technically the weakest episode for me as I really did not get into the episode until the very end when Master Chief makes an appearance.

• Score: 3/5

“Prototype”
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Prototype follows a marine sergeant nicknamed Ghost who leads Hades Squad, a demolition team charged with implementing the Cole protocol – destroying sensitive information and materials during UNSC retreats to prevent them falling into covenant hands. His nickname of Ghost stems from the complete lack of emotion he shows, highlighted in particular by his last mission – in which his entire platoon was wiped out, with him being the only survivor. For this reason he is distrusted by his squad. His squad are operating on the planet Algolis, attempting to destroy a prototype weapons facility that is about to be taken by the Covenant.​

“Prototype” let’s you see a power suite prototype that can be piloted by a human operator and how once soldier uses it against all odds and the wishes of his commanders. The story of “Prototype” is really excellent, but the action scenes once Ghost powers the prototype suite also adds to amazing feel of this story.
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• Score: 5/5

“Odd One Out”
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Animated by Toei Animation Company written and directed by Daisuke Nishio, Odd One Out is a parody story of Halo universe and is not canon. It follows the adventures of Spartan 1337, a member of Master Chief’s unit who suffers both from a severe ego and horrendous bad luck, although still a fairly competent fighter in his own right. He finds himself accidentally stranded on a planet after falling out of his transport. The planet is inhabited by dinosaurs and a group of stranded kids, the two oldest having near superhuman strength
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“Odd One Out” is definitely one of the funniest non Halo related canon I have ever watched, It makes a nice break for the other 7 stories which tend to lean more too the “heavy” and “darker side of things. It is fun, over the top and even pokes fun at the over the top Dragon Ball style martial arts action. Definitely one of my favorites!

• Score: 5/5

If you are any kind of Halo fan or any self respecting fan of Anime as an entertainment form then I highly recommend you pick this one up, but if you are a fan of neither I recommend you stay far away from this. The bonus content makes the deal even sweeter especially the short documentary entitled: “The Story so far.” It basically gives you the rundown of what happened in the halo universe from start till the end of the 3rd game. The behind the scenes footage is also a very interesting watch, and well worth your time. If I had to list my favorite episodes in order of preference, it would be as follows:

1. Odd One Out
2. The Duel
3. Prototype
4. The Babysitter
5. Prototype
6. Origins – I
7. Origins – II
8. Homecoming
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[kilo]

Got this over the weekend, will probably watch it tonight.
Animation seems really good.

 

[Voicy]

The very different styles of animation in this package reminds me of 'The Animatrix'...very similar fashion having traditional anime mixed with life-like cgi.

Definitely worth a watch for the halo fans. I rather enjoyed it.