Halo Legends ReviewVideo Games are growing rapidly as a medium, and in turn the games are growing larger in their own respects. An example of one of these franchises is Halo. While to many it's just a series of shooter games, it actually has a complex story arch and an incredibly vast universe. Halo Legends explores this aspect of the series through animated shorts. These shorts vary from more serious and dramatic pieces, to more light-hearted shorts. While there is certainly room for improvement, Halo Legends can certainly hold its own as a great staple of the Halo franchise. Each short is directed by a different director that is well known for their skill in animation. The project was led by Frank O'Connor, the creative head of the Halo Franchise. Some of the other directors include Shinji Aramaki, Hideki Futamura, Toshiyuki Kan'no, and Yasushi Muraki. The shorts feature many voice actors, including Josh Grelle, Greg Ayres, Luci Christian, and David Matranga. Halo Legends allows the viewer to explore the expanse that is the Halo universe from multiple different perspectives. These perspectives vary from an Arbiter struggling with the conflict between his beliefs and the beliefs of his superiors, to a squad of ODSTs (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) following a Spartan on a mission to take out a prophet.None of these scenarios seem too far-fetched. They all feel at home in the Halo universe, and for the most part it seems as though the directors did their research. Having different directors for each short was the right call. It gives each short a distinctive voice, and makes each perspective feel unique. Something else that I enjoyed about the shorts were the animation styles. Each short has its own distinct style of animation, to help create the unique atmosphere of each short. The animation is beautiful in its own respect, but it also helps accomplish the goal of setting the atmosphere quite effectively. One short, The Duel, fell short in this. The animation itself was fine, but there was a filter over the whole short. This made the short look blurry, and it became annoying to watch after a while. A creative decision that I feel was intelligent was the decision to use the pre-existing Halo score instead of writing new music for the shorts. It helped make the shorts feel more at home in the Halo universe, and gives the viewers who are familiar with the Halo franchise a greater emotional response. That, and the Halo score is some of the greatest music ever written. An issue that I had with the film was how some of the directors ignored integral aspects of the Halo lore. I have previously stated that the directors did their research, which is a statement I stand by, but there were a few moments that left me puzzled. The most obvious examples of this are when certain characters interact that could never have been able to interact based off of the previously established lore. All in all, Halo Legends is a great film. The directors took great care in producing stories that fit well into the Halo cannon, and it holds up as an animation regardless. That being said, there were some creative decisions that were detrimental to the overall quality of the film. While my opinion may be biased, I would give Halo Legends a solid 7.5/10.

I watched this some time ago, and I am still in shock. Let me start by saying I love Halo. I have all the games, enjoy the books and comics... However Halo Legends was utter garbage and I regret watching it.There are 8 separate animated segments, done in different animation styles. It is similar to the Animatrix and Batman; Gotham Knight, except those ones are good.I will comment on some of the segments and what I thought of them.Firstly, the worst segment in my opinion was 'the duel'. The animation was horrible, I think it was trying to be stylized, but all I could think was 'lazy' and it was so blurry I couldn't tell what was going on most of the time. The story was some junk about an Arbiter who lives in Fuedal Japan and is married to a cat. He upsets the covenant and has to fight a bunch of blurry samurai after they kill his cat wife. Probably worth skipping this one.The second worst segment was named 'Homecoming'. I think they were trying to market this to an audience of 13 year old girls. It's about a girl Spartan who cries a lot and carries a little teddy bear keyring or something. I felt sick when I watched this one.The segment 'Odd one out' was bad from the start. This one I think was meant to be funny, but they forgot to put the jokes in it. I didn't even crack a smile.I think the segment 'Prototype' was added to Halo Legends by accident. They had an un-aired episode of Gundam lying around and it somehow found it's way into the collection. Watch it if you like Gundam.The segment 'Babysitter' had some potential... Unfortunately they ruined it because all the ODST guys had girl hair (Apparently the military doesn't have grooming standards in the future), and the Spartan is a girl (AGAIN). *SiGh* The package was probably the only segment I really enjoyed. The CG was like the games and it had lots of action (And no girls crying).Origins was okay, but really nothing more than a rehash of the game story. I thought of it as an instructional manual being narrated.In conclusion I thought Halo Legends was awful. I believe anime was a poor choice and there seemed to be too much influence from the Japanese production houses. (Apparently the Japanese thing all Spartans should be schoolgirls or something).If they do another Halo animation I hope DC or Marvel can get involved and do it decent.

7.5The first thing I want to say is that I'm a huge Halo fan. There are certainly bigger fans out there, but Halo is close to my heart, has been in my life for almost a decade, and any more Halo love in my life would make me really weird. I guess that's why they call it, "love", huh? Halo Legends is a collection of 8 animated shorts drawn and created by 6 different studios. Origins I & II - These are by far the best episodes of the bunch. Part 1 and 2 are different in their animation style. However, not only is the animation style excellent, with its simple edges, bright colors and very good use of lighting/tone. Origins sports, like most of the other episodes music ripped straight from the games. This, in conjunction with Cortana's narration and familiar voice, makes for a very fan-pleasing episode. According to the commentary, there is a lot of imagery here, such as what the forerunners look like, or what their world looks like, that is not canon and only exists in Cortana's imagination, if you will. Still, seeing these images and also seeing some of the Covenant's races in their primitive state is very exciting. If Halo fans were to get anything out of Halo Legends, it would be Origins.The Duel - This is my least favorite episode of the bunch. I usually don't like to criticize other people's work. A lot of the time, it is usually lack of rapport and/or misunderstanding that leads me to not enjoy or dislike a certain work. However, I found The Duel to be very boring. I also was not a huge fan of the artistic style, which happens to be the most unique one out of the bunch. I greatly enjoy seeing the back-story of the Covenant races, but I felt that this was an Elite take on Japanese samurai storytelling. The only thing worth noticing here is the style, which employs a filter of a sort to make everything look watercolored.Homecoming - Exactly what I expected out of Halo Legends. Although not my favorite, I would very easily recommend this one to someone. It is exactly as I expected, and it is actually pretty good. At first glance, it might seem to take place in a random anime-style universe. However, as soon as you see a Spartan, you know what's going on, and it actually makes sense.Odd One Out - One thing that differenciates traditional western animation from eastern animation is the tone. A lot of the western stuff is comedy. A lot of the eastern stuff is dramatic. Serious stuff. How many western, adult cartoons can you think of? How many eastern animated comedies can you think of, that are strictly for kids, and have minimal to no violence? Well, Odd One Out is such. I guess. There's fighting in it, for sure. But it's not done in a way that I would be afraid to show it to my kids. In fact, even the animated style resembles something that is kid-friendly. Some might be turned off by this, but to them I say, have you ever seen Red vs. Blue?Prototype - This is one that hooked me in from the start. From the cinematic title, to the stylish, atmospheric setting, and the melodramatic intro, I was convinced that this might be the best offering on the disc. However, it was, to my taste, permeated with action, and lots of explosions. Sounds good, right? Well, again, this is my taste. And I prefer gab over guts, any day. Still, it is a good episode. Highly recommended for those that love niche aspects of Japanese culture, such as mechs.The Babysitter - Like Homecoming, this is similar to what my expectations were going into Halo Legends. This one also happens to be my second favorite of the bunch. The Babysitter tells the story of a group of ODST's sent on a special mission: assassinate a Covenant Prophet. Wow, pretty crazy, huh? There's only one catch. A Spartan soldier is going to not only accompany them, but lead the whole operation. I won't say anything else, but given that these are short stories, averaging at about 15 minutes or so each episode, they did a good job. A good story was told, using a good art style. Many scenes were shown that ground you in the Halo universe, not to mention some very intense scenes.The Package - This is second runner up for least interesting episode in the package (the disc). This is the only episode that sports 3D animation. There is nothing wrong with this style of animation. The reason that I do not like it, is that it is all substance, and no style. What you basically have is a famous piece of Halo History, where the Master Chief and 4 other Spartans board a Covenant ship to rescue Dr. Halsey, the A.I. that Cortana is based on. It also includes the first encounter between the Arbiter and the Chief. (I am not sure if this bit is canon or not.) All it is, is essentially 5 Spartans literally running and gunning. I did my fair share of that in the games.Halo Legends is ultimately a mixed bag of works, all taking place directly in the Halo universe. Ultimately, I'd recommend Halo Legends to any hardcore Halo fan. If you hate anime, but love Halo... well, you might as well give it a shot. If you love anime, but don't like Halo, you might enjoy these short stories, but it would be better if you knew some back-story before going into it.

I am not a Halo fan nor a Halo player. Sure I pick the game up on occasions when I'm with friends or something. However I am a big anime fan and the thought of a Halo Legends anthology anime did interest me. When I found my all time anime directing idol was attached (Koichi Mashimo) I was excited and knew I had to check it out. Here is my overall breakdown of the collection.Origins I&II (1/5): Origins from Studio 4°C was probably the worst of the bunch. I found it boring and tedious and the production quality strikingly amateurish that no anime fan would forgive from a lesser known studio. While it is a good idea to give the background of the Halo universe for non Halo players, the choice of doing it in a narration format was just duller than dirt. I could have saved my self the $20 and read the history for my self at Wikipedia.The Duel (2/5): animated by Production I.G, I was taken aback by this one at first. The insane style really threw a curve-ball at me but in the end it kind of grew on me when I realized it was a very unique style choice and innovative. But the color pallet and visual style really didn't do much for the story. Felt like I was looking through a glass window trying to watch a TV. The character designs are ugly and they look like dinosaurs or something. The final nail in the coffin was the all to obvious "NOOOOOOOOO" when he finds the body of his wife. Of course that would be upsetting but does everyone have to scream No in film and television? It's an innovative and interesting episode to watch but feels more like a Samurai story set on an alien world than a sci-fi action story. Not that's a bad thing necessarily either.Homecoming: (5/5) After the continuing disappointments the collection finally picked up with this great episode. Animated by Bee Train (with support from Production I.G) is one of my favorite segments yet. After the disappointment of The Duel and that storybook they called an episode (Origins) my hope was withering for these stories to pick it up again. Having full faith they could do a good job I watched with anticipation. Frankly the dark turn of events was really not something I was predicting for anything Halo ever. I'm glad they kept such strong contrast in the color pallet by not going dark just because it's a dark story like probably most other studios would have done.The bear might have been cliché but you know, it really worked and it was a very melancholic touch. The music was great having a bit of a retro feel but still not too retro. People at Bee Train to me have always been masters of using music to it's full potential and this was no exception either. The ending bit with Master Chief was really just the best, while I didn't burst into tears like I have on some other sadder anime series I still felt moved by the story. The animation quality is also extremely well done in this as well the character designs and art pallet are quiet beautiful.Prototype: (5/5) My other favorite of the series! Prototype animated by BONES really caught me off guard. I'm not a fan of BONES they make overrated and over hyped series and to many fall into useless clichés (like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0). This episode on the other hand was both dramatic and action packed as well as sad enough to make a little tear in my eye. A very powerful well written and animated drama was the perfect installment. This episode and Homecoming were my two favorites and there is no way I can chose one over the other as my 1st and foremost.Odd One Out (5/5): Harking back to the good old day of Anime right? Well maybe. Animated by Toei Animation, Odd One Out isn't well liked here among the fans but being a non-Halo fan that is probably why I enjoyed it. Amazingly funny and just felt like DragonBall franchise colliding with Halo. A lot of fun and a lot of laughs come with this one and it's just awesome.The Babysitter: (3/5) The Babysitter was the first episode I saw through Halo Way Point and I liked it. Didn't have much hopes for this being from Studio 4°C and their usually super deformed style of art but I did like this episode.An interesting bit that provided good animation but not a particularly engaging storyline. Apparently it's about rivalry between the two groups but it seems to be playing more to one kid's ego and pride which has only been done 30 million times in film and elsewhere. Not the most ingenious or creative but not the worst.The Package: (3/5) Casio Entertainment's Big finale was a pretty fun adventure. Really great Sci-fi action and adventure topped off with a space battle is the icing on the cake. The story sadly suffers from some mediocre writing with cheesy one-liners and a predictable plot line.So in the end Halo Legends is another in the collection of anime Anthologies. What I like about projects like these is you get to see several creative minds give their take on a storyline. Halo Legends has it's good and bad and I think fans and non Halo fans alike will enjoy it.