Ancient. Epic. Mysterious. Become the eternal champion and relive the Song of Bungie, retold and resung anew. Somewhere in the heavens, they are waiting. In a collection of over 7 games and hundreds of fan maps, find yourself starting back in a universe full of dark secrets from forerunners long past and eat the path against hopeless odds. You are fate itself. The collection includes Pathways Into Darkness, Marathon, Marathon 2: Durandal, Marathon Infinity, Myth: The Fallen Lords, Myth 2: Soulblighter, Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2. In addition, the collection also includes Marathon Eternal, Phoenix, Kindred Spirits, Rubicon, Red, Evil, Trojan, Tempus Irae, Apotheosis X, Myth 2: Chimera, Mjolnir Project, Halo 1.5, Lumoria, SOI's Singleplayer Adventure, Operation Takedown, Cursed Halo, Halo 2: Cortana, and so on. Also included are fixes and new additions for each individual game, such as Halo supporting quick saves, Marathon 2/Infinity supporting music, restored cut content, and more.
This collection delivers in spades. The added custom campaigns & inclusion of Myth + Marathon (with many great scenarios) + Halo 2 + the many MP maps & QOL user interface, along with the enhanced visuals across the board, make for one of the best all-in-one mod packs ever made.
Halo Combat Evolved - Spartan Edition: 8
This was thus far, the best from the entire collection. Packaged with many of the mission packs among the favorites of Halo Maps - of varying quality. Admittantly it did bring memories of my childhood playing Halo Custom Edition. Still rife with bugs and crashes but this time, it seems there was more effort in polish, maintenance, and quality control.
Halo 2 - Spartan Edition: 5
This was by far, the weakest of the collection. There is nothing truly special about this remaster, sans a few improvements like better dual-wield options. You can dual-wield with the BR for instance now. It seems to just be a vanilla version of Halo 2 Vista retooled as-is. This would have been fine were it not for the Halo MCC existing. Granted, with the way 343I's is intent on disrespecting the fanbase, I'd may as well settle for H2V over MCC anyday, especially if it means escaping their stupid political trash name tags, and its far more toxic and censorious 343I Halo fanbase (especially talking to you Halo Mods Discord and Alexis Wankerzu Jonnasson!). Also there is Z-fighting nigh everywhere, the characters speak Japanese with no way to adjust language options, and the dual wielding system is utterly botched.
Myth Dilogy - Spartan Edition: 7
The entire Myth dilogy, expansions, and UGC packaged into one. This was actually really worthwhile, albeit the game feels artificially difficult, even on bloody Normal difficulty. Perhaps I am just not use to a game like Myth, but strategy is nothing new to me either. Been playing/replaying Army Men RTS, Dawn of War, and Company of Heroes, and Freedom Force for 2 decades now. Though most of these games have a weird difficulty curve (even on Easy), at least there is a way on how to play it properly that I managed to learn. Perhaps the same applies to the Myth games, yet I still have not found it. If I do, this rating may change for the better.
Marathon - Spartan Edition: 6
This one seems to have both the Marathon trilogy and all of the Aleph One sequels bundled together. Mod setup is tricky. One has to memories and setup the correct files or the game will botch upon startup. What I hate most about this remaster is that there is no way to pause the game and adjust menu settings. Instead, it shows the quit to main menu screen. I am unsure if the original games did this, but even if it did, I do not think the developer of this 'Spartan Edition Collection' should have emulated this, or at least provide an option to toggle this. Just have a simple pause menu with settings - it is better than quitting my game session just to tweak settings.
Overall Collection Rating: 7