: Because if you just do the exact same thing over and over again, it gets
: boring and stale - especially if the old games are still around. (This is
: how many people felt about Reach, and [even with all of its changes] Halo
: 4.)

: The key is to figure out what makes it special, and take risks in other
: places. Just because ODST did this better than Halo 4 doesn't mean 343i
: was not trying.

: Yes, Halo means oversaturated hues and Forerunner monoliths to me, and the
: Forerunner aesthetic was a disappointment. But other people may think
: differently. And you can capture the flavor without being an exact copy,
: too - I felt "The Package" looked more classic Halo (Halsey
: aside) than Halo: Reach did.

Good character design is good character design, though. To me, aside from a few basic gameplay tenets that are inviolable--having shields, for example--the gameplay of Halo can be a lot of things. That's why I like a lot of stuff in Halo 4, just like I enjoy the "classic"gameplay of days past. But visuals don't need to change to keep things "fresh", unless your designs were bad from the get-go.

(And I don't think the key word with Halo is 'oversaturated', just 'saturated'. Halo 3 isn't amazingly colorful or overblown, it can certainly look that way when compared to the usual 'next-gen' shooters we got this generation.)