Legendary Spartan Ops is Exhausting

I played Spartan Ops on Legendary. I thought it would be fun. I could not have been more wrong. I originally planned on playing through the whole thing but I couldn't stand to play anymore. Maybe someday I'll finish it off.
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[@fromthegrave69]

My general takeaway from this video is that Frog can’t wait to play more Spartan Ops

[@coltforceplayer]

*Frog Ops

[@m16-a2]

Agreed ​@@coltforceplayer

[@Valrok1870]

I concur More Frog Ops! (I too did this for the achievement, it sucked)

[@Devilfish96]

13:27 yeah he even says so himself

[@AidenCooper-rh1cu]

I got word of a settlement that needs your help il mark it on your map 😈

[@FlameoftheWest]

"I thought Crimson was your spartan's name" In all fairness, most people are going to be running this solo, and you wouldn't expect a fireteam name to be used for one person. It's like if Master Chief was constantly referred to as "Blue Team" during Halo CE-4.

[@keyeslord]

lmaooo

[@findtheblue]

It's not a fireteam name but Master Chief isn't his name either

[@Determ1nat1on]

"Shit" censored to "Shipmaster" is gold LMAO

[@user-so9ic7qw2u]

when did that happen

[@Determ1nat1on]

@@user-so9ic7qw2u 1:30

[@Determ1nat1on]

@@user-so9ic7qw2u At 1:30

[@serasizumi2830]

@@user-so9ic7qw2uabout 1:37-1:40 if you wish to hear it.

[@FrostysZone]

@@user-so9ic7qw2u 1:38

[@sumomanify]

Spawn die spawn die was the whole creative philosophy for this mode. It does get a little better eps 6-10 when they actually started making new areas to fight in. Still an absolute slog though

[@TheKingAZFlo]

I thought the infinity episode was decent, but that’s about it

[@johannes1432]

@@TheKingAZFlo my thoughts exactly. I found episode 10 especially infuriating. But that could have been me on full tilt at that point

[@davidshillaker7578]

you mean there are actually more maps? I'm on ep 4 of Spartan Ops after 2 years. I cant do this anymore!

[@johannes1432]

@@davidshillaker7578 I wanted to finish them all. After ep. 05 I took a break for like 2 years or so. I recently finished the last 4. Other than ep 07 (I think ep 07, the one on the ship, I can't remember) and one mission in ep. 10 it felt like hate watching a TV show. You're having a miserable time but for some odd reason you refuse to stop. You've come too far to stop now

[@vincent4587]

@@johannes1432 yeah, pretty much

[@Jogmemeson]

Man spartan ops solo on legendary is one of the most painful expirience i've had playing halo, and i did all of the laso playlists

[@56borderlands]

Jeah I totally agree with you buddy.

[@CipherFiveZero]

Episode 5, Chapter 1 is the worst... had to do a cheese exploit in order to beat it on Legendary Solo by leaving a few crawlers alive in order to not spawn more enemies in and just narrowly completing the defense objective.

[@MindfulGP]

I think I’m just to Garbo to do the lasos but I am GOING to beat the Spartan ops eventually

[@viziontrex]

​@@MindfulGPit's easier but it's so much more tedious and boring because of how badly balanced it all is. Good luck!

[@ItsErnest301]

Imagine playing the same repetitive shit likes 50 fcking times haha so CrInGe (i also did it)

[@Dvalarogg]

"Please let that be it. It's not it, there's more!" sums up Spartan Ops really well. The only silver lining to Spartan Ops is that you can't lose progress, 'cause fuck me is it tedious and repetitive. Unless of course a mission happens to bug out and prevent you from completing it, say near the end of a mission, like it did for me...

[@jacoblitman4866]

What I'm getting from this is that Halo 4 Spartan Ops are basically just the Library, except you can't run-and-gun. You have to clear out every single spawn, including the ones which pop up right behind you, in very repetitive environments.

[@tobythedevil1874]

If only Spartan ops scaled down the enemies for people playing solo

[@domevans2725]

Then it would make it even more boring than it already is 😂

[@lolusuck386]

​@@domevans2725but you'd at least get through it faster.

[@domevans2725]

@@lolusuck386 yuh true that

[@liamdalemon1525]

I kind of like having more enemies because I think it's funny to think that lore wise, one random Spartan IV is capable of taking on more enemies simultaneously than even Master Chief can.

[@CrocBankRbbr]

“Please let that be it” sums up spartan ops pretty well

[@Jedi_Spartan_38]

Swiftly followed by "There's more?!"

[@MintBlitz]

Spartan ops might be the only thing I dislike playing more than the H5 Campaign.

[@Bizargh]

Blimey, I think I'd *still* take Spartan Ops over the Halo 5: Guardians Campaign. At least with Spartan Ops, you can choose your loadouts, choose your player character, play against what remnants of Halo: Reach's AI behaviour & combat loop survived 343 Industries' changes and maybe even get a laugh out of it, if not use it as a playground for whatever mods support it (Halo 4 Reflow & Halo 4 Mythic Overhaul two present examples that I know of) or for testing your own if you've got a Steam copy. Meanwhile, I played the Halo 5: Guardians campaign two-player cooperatively with two different friends (One even via "System Link" in the same room and the other one who enjoyed Spartan Ops with me) and none of us couldn't even get any ironic enjoyment out of the whole thing. I swear, all we did was complain about all the so-blatantly-obviously-missed opportunities, groan at a lot of the missed marks or just wait for anything to entertain us more than the juvenile nickname we gave Warden Eternal (I think I'd still rather hear him "Finish his Wank" - there's a hint to our juvenile name - rather than hear what those bloody Promethean Soldiers have to say ever again). In fairness, at least Halo 5: Guardians gives you a whole lot of different material to whinge 'n' moan about, whereas Spartan Ops can't even offer that now that it's traded it's Matchmaking support for accessible Skulls, it's basically only good for having a couple of Chapters that serve well for quick-completing Weekly/Monthly Challenges and doing Legendary Solo on that thing is such a tedious & monotonous "Chipping at a brick wall until it crumbles" exercise that I've never seen anybody whose done it (Myself included) use their experience as anything but a cautionary tale. Not to mention, since it's self-contained narrative ended up only serving at most as mere set-up for what Halo 5: Guardians did all of the "paying off" for, you don't even need to revisit Spartan Ops to do that old ribbing.

[@someguyinahoodie3856]

Yeah, yeah, we get it, 343 number bad. Clickbait titles, misleading information and rants as a grown man are pretty bad too

[@thefallen2220]

Spartan Ops is literally that Doctor Strange scene where he keeps coming back

[@mushroomfish300]

For anyone looking to get the legendary solo achievement, you can use bandana and acrophobia skulls and it will still trigger

[@levi22es]

Wish those skulls were in the game when I did that achievement.

[@onyxcideYT]

Anyone looking to get the legendary solo achievement, dont.

[@levi22es]

@@onyxcideYT lmao too true. It’s a slog not worth suffering through. LASO is brutal, but at least it’s fun in a challenging way. Spartan Ops is just boring.

[@hectorp9218]

This actually helped so much thank you! I finally got the legendary solo acheviment just the other day and those skulls made it so much easier!

[@MozambiqueEnjoyer6097]

Bro Spartan Ops on Normal is exhausting. I spent an absurd amount of time in 2013 playing through all of Spartan Ops solo because I didn't have Internet to play online. And none of it fucking mattered.

[@flamingdragon1527]

For anyone going for 'Icarus' in Spartan Ops, please note that you should NOT reset the current mission you're playing. Restarting while playing the selected mission will bug the achievement completion status. Play the mission from start to finish. It will count.

[@TheUnapologeticGeek]

I wish all knights would teleport into their own nades. "You might as well just say the whole clock" cracked me up.

[@HauntaskhanHYPNOSIS]

I always wondered why the Prometheans would just stop sending more units to a location. Like they send a wave and go "well, that'll be good enough" and when its not, they don't just teleport more in? Dont they have like billions of them? Such a weird enemy faction.

[@dianavespid937]

The Didact was fully gone by that point, not only was the Mantle's Approach destroyed during the end of Halo 4, the Composers were destroyed shortly after during the events of Halo Escalation. By the point Spartan Ops begins, it's fair to assume Jul's stock of Prometheans was way limited and barely under his control

[@ExternalDialogue]

This mode was such wasted potential. The idea of getting some more dynamic encounters like in a campaign combined with the very non-committal hop in, shot aliens leave nature of Firefight is a really great idea on paper. Too bad it's halo 4 gameplay and artstyle as well as extremely repetitive environments.

[@stuartcully9794]

1:30. I had no idea regen could deflect sticky grenades from middair. Sheeeed.

[@battedbook5811]

I've seen someone deflect a tank shot with that thing. It's weird.

[@tricksterjoy9740]

@@battedbook5811I’ve seen it Yeet a tank at mach 1 bajillion once, but I’ve never been able to reproduce that wackiness or seen it happen again.

[@hello987b]

Its always interesting seeing someone else go through the same hell I went through when Legendary soloing these spartan Ops missions.

[@elijahstewart3377]

Random person: is Irish Frog: hey, it's a leprechaun

[@QuarrelsomeLocalOaf]

Frog runs afoul of an Irishman

[@Crudmonkey211]

That was a Scottish accent.

[@bales1569]

Wow this is a blast from the past. I played a lot of Spartan Ops and Halo 4 when I was a child, but that was over ten years ago so this is a forgotten memory

[@TheOneAndOnlyDillYak]

I went for this achievement too. Turned on Bandanna and Acrophobia, stole a beam rifle (which has no cooldown), hovered at the top of the map and killed everything until they said I could go to kill more. Don’t you just love being made to play a four-player experience solo?

[@Leaked1ndex]

You can do that and still get the achievement?

[@Determ1nat1on]

@@Leaked1ndex Indeed you can

[@TheOneAndOnlyDillYak]

Yeah, it still worked. Those skulls only affect achievements if they’re related to score or time on levels or specifies otherwise.

[@SaturdayIsMyBae]

Thank you so much for that advice, that sounds incredible

[@hemandy94]

1:39 that elite really sticked his ally. poor guy

[@jacquesthornewill5541]

8:44 made me laugh. Perfectly cut.

[@retr0404]

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought crimson was your Spartan’s name lol.

[@yracpontiferous4846]

That bit at 9:25 unlocked a bad memory of dealing with that exact same enemy. So obnoxious.

[@charlief.]

Frog, what I recommend is using one of the “Universal” controller layouts across all Halos, so you don’t have to get used to a different controller layout for each Halo.

[@lolusuck386]

If it wasn't for that awful AWFUL achievement where you had to play all of the ops on Legendary solo, I might've at least tolerated Spartan Ops.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

One that doesn’t even track progress and can force you play through slop

[@zacharytan2437]

Yeah, I had to play through the entire Spartan Ops close to a dozen times because of that accursed achievement. About a third of the missions were initially not registered for me and I had no way of knowing which missions were affected. It was only on my final playthrough that I learned I could use Acrophobia and bandanna.

[@lolusuck386]

​@@zacharytan2437I don't think the acrophobia skull was even available when I did it. I had to get it the old fashioned way.

[@willyates2787]

to be fair the back half of spartan ops is slightly better. emphasis on slightly

[@NeonNijahn]

"Made to play with multiple people" ... i volunteer as tribute (shipmaster)

[@PinkSpaceDinosaur]

Hey Frog (or whoever else lol) if you do decide to finish Spartan Ops on MCC you can use Acrophobia and Bandanna and you still get progress/achievements. Easy method is to get a Binary Rifle (Sniper Rifles and Beam Rifles work too, just not as well) and just sit at the top of the map while you clear the area. Rocket Launchers and Incineration Cannons are good for cleaning up remaining hostiles. Totally extra but I'd run Promethian Vision also, though it doesn't work as well at very long distances

[@switchboy2320]

I think we can ask agree that spartan ops was dissapointing

[@Horgler]

It's like 343 wanted their own Modern Warfare Special Ops mode, but failed to understand what made it fun.

[@thejjolli]

He did it, he actually took my suggestion! Love you frog

[@saf1218]

Thank god finally something I can watch while eating again… ty frog but upload more challenge stuff pls❤

[@HauntaskhanHYPNOSIS]

343 games: Go into this room, fight a wave, activate a switch, oh no another wave, activate the other switch, oh no another wave 40x

[@thestormwar]

Keep playing Frog. It only gets more fun from here.

[@joshuakincaid8238]

I just remember after finally beating 50 missions solo on legendary. I remember having a big sigh of relief that it was finally done

[@blaineockerman]

Is this what the dumpster was referencing? Lol great video

[@NoNameTaken117]

Funnily enough, the noob combo saved me in legendary solo runs for spartan ops. Such lifesavers they are in dealing with elites

[@hoppeanhelicoptertours]

Hello Bastila’s voice actress 😂

[@mananlak]

doing the “all Ops legendary solo” trophy was one of the most incredible exercises in tedium I’ve ever done

[@MrPwnag3r]

This video made me realize that the original trilogy was between 23 years and 17 years ago And Halo 4 was 12 years ago man i feel old

[@Irondrakeshield]

8:31 made me realise 343 didn't understand halo at all not just games but in lore a colony of letgolos only make 2 hunters (bond brothers) making 3 mean the covenant decided to take half of a colonies worms and make a hunter leaving the other half

[@hemandy94]

343 never understood halo

[@Irondrakeshield]

@@hemandy94 I thought it was just how to make a good game not messing up the lore

[@Wizzkidwas]

I've done this legendary solo and co-op its actually not that bad with 4 people, but the enemy count isn't adjusted for lower player counts and thats where the real issue is

[@Fog_12]

man oh man oh man I hated Spartan ops. I appreciate the concept but I just really can’t get on board with the execution

[@mattsquared87]

3:10 Don't talk shit on Pylons that is a banger

[@prehistorichero2755]

I remember playing Spartan Ops, but even on easy mode, this is really hard.

[@Lilac_005]

Looks like someone had fun :D

[@connorvenier5843]

The one thing I did enjoy was that regardless of difficulty, it wouldn't make you restart every time you died, you'd just respawn. But yea it was exhausting on some levels

[@gabbette7]

@9:49 i had that exact same thing happen, an enemy gets dropped out of bounds and you cant get them, you have to start over..... LAME

[@RobsMiscellania]

I have a few vids on my channel of a time when I thought I might get into Legendary, No Death speed runs of Spartan Ops. Shout-out to RC Master for getting me into that; unfortunately I don't think he's posted a video for a decade or more, but he's a great resource for Spartan Ops strats. You absolutely have to have good knowledge and have the right settings and equipment to do these, otherwise it turns into what we saw in this particular video lol. Not just any will do, you have to setup your loadouts according to what you'll be encountering in a particular episode.

[@WikiHL]

Thank you for your service, Froga

[@Baalaaka]

watching frog go insane makes the best vidoes

[@SirFloopy]

Completed the whole thing solo on Legendary for the Smooth Operator achievement, my experience was pretty similar. It actually does improve a bit in the later missions when they learned how to make it more, you know, fun. But I'm sure the earlier missions were such a slog that most players would never have stuck around long enough to see it. And even then they never really got away from the "vomit a massive crowd of enemies onto you in every level" problem.

[@cokestrongman6197]

looking back at the year of halo 4 having any multiplayer base I feel remorse for making my friends play through every level of spartan ops with me on legendary to get the achievements. Damn good people to stick around for that kind of torture

[@flamingdragon1527]

9:29 I have also encountered that bug numerous times and reported it to the support team. I hope they fix it.

[@Schmitty487]

When i was going for the solo spartan ops on legendary achievement the worst part was the number of enemies and the fact that the guns despawn insanely fast. If they scaled the enemies back for solo and made the guns not despawn in like a minute it wouldnt have been so miserable

[@danielshepard3067]

I'm sorry, halo 4 came out 10 years ago?! Man I feel old

[@bagel785]

this is remarkably well timed with when I started my own run of spartan ops on legendary, I've been at it for maybe a week or two and I'm halfway through and my god is it a slog. I haven't fully watched the video yet but within the first few missions you're already having the same problems as me. I would've tried to beat this with a friend or two, but at the same time I also want the solo legendary achievement lmao

[@nickwoo2]

Its bad when the game does not register that you beat all the levels but also says you beat all of them so you have to go back through it again to get the achievement.

[@Rang89]

Oh funny, I just played this for the very first time. I didn't even know it existed until I decided to watch a halo 5 playthrough (I have no way to play it myself) and they mentioned spartan ops, so I played it for the story, to catch up. And oh boy, I usually play Halo games on heroic, but I quickly changed it to normal, just to counter balance the atrocious waves upon waves and monotony 😅 Thank you for the chuckles Frog, I love the montages and comedic timing ♥

[@MaximumSpice]

I get the feeling frog loved this. I think he should do a speed run of it now.

[@atlasinvivo6171]

I played through all spartan ops when I got the MCC and every time he spawned into a new level I instinctively thought “oh yeah I hated that one”

[@christopherdavis6827]

Was today years old when I learned Bastila had the same VA as Palmer. Thanks Frog!

[@JustAnODSTyt]

I played through the Spartan Ops a few months ago with friends on legendary, i remember literally none of it except that it was a chore to do because its the same 6 maps with nothing new

[@darrenliwen]

I love your commentary

[@algorithmicallypuzzled1003]

I beat all Spartan Ops episodes on Legendary on both Halo 4 and Halo MCC. I kind of found them relaxing since you never lost progress upon death.

[@tables8489]

Dude, seriously. The first 3 chapters was me getting used to it. It was all Fuel rod elites and incinderary cannon Prometheans. I literally just finished Halo 4 Spartan Ops on Legendary and it took me (in my free time after work + weekends) 2 weeks to finish all 10 chapters. It was fun but exhausting.

[@thefallen2220]

That Elite friendly fire reminded me of that time an Elite SOMEHOW stuck himself, *survived* the explosion, got PISSED and beat the *crap* out of me (my RB was broken as hell so coudnt just punch him)

[@TheodoreChin-ih7xz]

After all this time ive still never made it through all 10 seasons

[@TheEGrievous]

AI: How many are? Frog: There's too many of them, what are we going to do?

[@PivotWar33]

I had been going for the achievement over the last couple years. About two years ago I had finally completed every spartan ops mission solo on legendary - but I realized that the achievement progress was only at 98%. I had no idea which mission I was missing, but it was only one. Anyone here probably knows that spartan ops progress used to not be tracked by MCC. Anyways, it took another year to get the motivation and find the time to keep going, but it turned out it was a mission somewhere in the sixth episode. So it could have been worse. I thought this mode felt like work too, and THEN I realized I was potentially going to have to do it all over again. Not a great feeling lol

[@dvera9948]

I remember playing this in legendary when I was a child and thinking "after this, I`m never playing spartan ops ever"

[@levi22es]

I liked how you pointed out the one good mission. I too thought that one was the only fun one.

[@saltierdongs7760]

The voice lines for Spartan Ops sound exactly like things I would say while pretending to be in the army as an 8 year old

[@TexturesLikeMegaBloks]

Frogs going through it

[@zacharytan2437]

I played through the entire Spartan Ops solo on legendary close to a dozen times because the "Smooth operator" achievement was bugged. About a third of the missions were initially not registered by the achievement tracker and each one could take mulitple playthroughs just to be marked as completed. The worse part is that I had no way of knowing which missions were affected so I had to slog through the entire thing over and over again. It was only on my final playthrough that I learned that I could use zero multiplier skulls. Acrophobia and bandanna really sped things up alot.

[@danieldeisinger640]

That stupid enemy got stuck for me in 3-5 too! I had to find a segment of rock that wouldn't block my shots, and it took my like forty-five minutes.

[@Middleseed]

I played through this on legendary while I had COVID, can’t say it was a great experience.

[@vicolin6126]

I played Spartan Ops when they came out originally, and the first "batch" of missions were really repetitive. Same 5 maps, over and over. 343 later released another batch, or was it a few maybe, with more maps and somewhat better objectives. Spartan Ops really were meant to be played with 4 people though, I did that over Xbox live matchmaking and it worked out fine, mostly. Some bugs with enemies spawned in walls. Most missions are DOABLE solo, but not that fun. It was meant as a hybrid co-op campaign/firefight-mode. There is, however, 1 mission I know of that is, as far as I know by my own tries, IMPOSSIBLE while playing solo. If I remember correctly, you have a Mantis and you are supposed to protect 2 or 3 separate items on the map - if one blows up, you fail the mission. I even tried this on easy, but the objectives are so far apart that you literally can't beat this playing solo.

[@WaifuRuns]

Thanks for playing it so we don’t have to

[@TheaverageSpartan4]

I think it was designed with four players in mind and doesn’t scale

[@kingemmoden214]

Spent like 10 hours grinding the Legendary Solo achievements, only for a bug to cause one of the missions in the third batch to not count as completed. I tried going back to get the achievement only to get soft locked 20 minutes in because enemies were stuck out of bounds. Safe to say I have not touched the gamemode in over a year.

[@aaronohara34]

My exact experience when I decided I would play through the entirety of Spartan ops on legendary. The worst part is, I'm too far in to stop now....

[@normalrobloxplayer445]

i love ur vids keep it up

[@swimmerofage2148]

See he ended it right where Spartan Ops finally gets good. I've always skipped those first 5 sets because they're spawn and die, but infinity, escape, and all the other ones from 6-10 are pretty solid.

[@MadaraUchiha-yu5vg]

You forgot to mention the fact that once the Watchers start summoning, you can't stop them. Even killing them before they start the animation doesn't stop them from spawning in 50 groups of Crawlers due to someone at 343 getting basic scripting wrong.

[@FrostyFrostySnow]

We need a compilation of those Covenant self-owns

[@galactic1776]

I don’t think it makes that much of a difference in Spartan Ops, but you should at least try the Halo 4 Reflow mod in the campaign. Even without the weapon adjustments the improved AI makes this game so much more engaging

[@OwenGee22]

If it means anything, the final 5 chapters are on original maps due to the backlash at the time.

[@Rookie-2552]

As someone who has gotten the legendary solo achievement, yes this is utterly soul crushing and depressing as hell to do. A very long haul achievement

[@Wally17.]

Trying to play this mode just on Normal and solo is a difficult pain in the rear. I wouldn’t put myself through trying it on Legendary.

[@kyleshreve9913]

This timing is crazy. I'm playing through Spartan Ops on MCC legendary solo and I just finished episode 5... I can attest to everything in this video, especially the part about thinking they say "eggheads" way too much.

[@diamondinthesky4771]

Spartan Ops on MCC be like: "Play me please" Me: "No, I don't think I will" *Goes back to choosing between CE, 2 and 3's multiplayers*

[@emcoulter4459]

I remember there being an asinine amount of levels to this. I played a bunch of them, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to play them all. I think I got through season 3 but lacked the willpower to continue. It was like 343 were never gonna stop releasing more, and they were not very fun.

[@alexanderedwards4617]

The Spartan Ops achievements were absolutely the ones I had the least fun getting enroute to completing 700/700

[@mcoreotims2509]

When I had to replay for MCC god it was terrible. Most pain in my ass and just a chore. Guns despawning, the fact enemies don’t scale for single player, annoying respawns, and the god damned knights rushing and teleporting. 😂 love the video sums it up great

[@DeadlyHusk]

If you truly only want the achievement you can put on the infinite ammo skull and still get the solo legendary achievement

[@DontRunSean]

even a halo game i will never play agen i still will watch you play it for you make it fun to see.

[@carimannola1447]

I need a War Crime Compilation from this

[@jacobslagle314]

My favorite thing from playing Legendary Spartan Ops was being told what to do by FemShep, so that was pretty cool.