This is by far, the biggest unboxing article I’ve ever written, due to the large amount to content I’ve had to go through. Since the Legendary Edition also includes the Limited Edition of the game, this unboxing will count for both.
Limited Edition includes:
- Game disc housed in recovered ONI ”black box”
- An exclusive Elite armor set for use in multiplayer modes
- Artifact bag containing Dr. Halsey’s personal journal and other classified documents and effects that unravel long held secrets from the “Halo” universe
Legendary Edition includes:
- Everything from the limited Edition
- Noble Team statue expertly crafted by the artisans at McFarlane Toys. Individually molded, hand-painted and individually numbered.
- UNSC-themed custom packaging
- An exclusive multiplayer Spartan armor effect
Anyway, lets get started.
The Unboxing
The Legendary edition comes in a box the size of a small moon. Worthy of the word ‘legendary’ indeed. It’s so big it warrants it’s own carry handle at the top of the box. The box is made out of a decent quality cardboard, quite hard but looks slightly cheap at the same time. Not quite as nice as the almost glossy finish the Starcraft II one has.
The box comes with a cardboard slip which goes around the box and acts as the front and back covers. The box is taped around the sides, which is the only thing that stops the top from popping off.
Opening the box, you are immediately greeted with the Limited Edition contents, as well as a ‘handwritten’ (well it’s actually printed) letter regarding the Noble Team statue, as well as an instruction guide underneath on how to assemble some of the weapons onto the figures.
The Limited Edition
The Limited Edition stuff comes in “ONI” black box, which a pretty durable plastic case.
The box opens from the top, and there is a metal handle which you can use to pull out the contents from.
The game is inside, in a regular black DVD case and not the usual green Xbox 360 one. The Legendary Edition content codes are in a card inside.
Underneath the game is a black padded bag, containing the journal of Catherine Halsey, one of the key personnel overseeeing the SPARTAN II project and designer of the MJOLNIR armor. They have really gone for the immersion effect with this journal, and it already begins on the packaging, with a sortof postal note on the back of the wrapping.
The journal itself is made out of high quality cardboard, giving it almost a wood-like feeling to it. It’s string binded and there’s a magnetic tab on the front which keeps it sealed.
The content of the journal is extremely well done. It may be printed, it really does feel like someone wrote it. I’m not going into great detail about what’s actually written in it, since I haven’t actually spent all that much time reading it, but there’s stuff like how Halsey came up with the name SPARTAN, design sketches for the armor, there’s a page about Cortana in there somewhere as well.
Scattered throughout the journal are several loose items, like ‘newspaper’ clipping and letters addressed to Catherine. There’s also a glossy map folded up, you can see a screenshot of it in the gallery below.
Okay, now as if there wasn’t already enough content IN the journal itself, at the back of the journal, there is a little pouch which contains tons of additional documents, at least 15. I’m not going to go through all of them since it will be overkill, instead you can check out the pics in the gallery below.
The major inclusions are the iron-on badge, which you can use to ruin a shirt/jacket etc, and Catherine Halsey’s ID pass or something like that. There’s a couple of medical records for SPARTAN II candidates and lots of letters and newsclippings. There’s some pretty nice touches on some of them; some are printed on paper which has a ‘please recycle’ watermark on it. Again, check out the gallery for more shots.
The Noble Team Statue
Finally, we move onto the meat of the Legendary Edition, the Noble Team statue.
Under the large foam holding the game lies the Noble Team statue, which as you can see, is pretty damn big. If you have one of those Detolf shelves from IKEA, it may just squeeze in on one tier, with little to no room left.
Let’s start with the bad parts first. There’s been alot of bad buzz going around on the internet about the quality of this statue. There is ‘some’ truth to this, because people look at the base and see immediately that it feels quite cheap, it’s hollow etc. Get over it, it’s just the freaking base. It wouldn’t make sense to spend high quality plastic to mould it, because that would just inflate the already incredible price of this edition already.
Thankfully, the good parts are the ones that actually matters, which are the Noble Team figures themselves. These are made out of a high quality PVC that you’d expect from anime/action figures, and they are pretty detailed to boot (although not as nice as the upcoming Play Arts ones).
You might notice that the statue is missing weapons, and if you remember reading earlier, there was an assembly guide provided. This is because the weapons are included separately and you’ll need to attach them by yourself. I haven’t actually done it, since there isn’t enough space in my apartment to actually display the statue, so it’s going straight back into the box after this article is done. I have heard that they are a real pain to put together though, and the pegs which attach to the actual figures themselves are a bit fragile, so that’s another minus.
And finally, the back of the statue has a large Noble Team insignia on it. Don’t let that cheap look get to you.
The Conclusion
I’ll do this conclusion in two parts, one for the Limited Edition, and one for the Legendary Edition. Any owner of the Limited Edition should be very happy, because for that measly extra $10AUD (or however miniscule extra in your own currency), you get an incredibly well made extra (being the journal of course). Bungie has really gone all out on the journal, with tons and tons of background content. It’s almost like what’d you’d find in the good ol’ days of PC Gaming, with cloth maps etc.
On a small minus note though, I really wish they’d included a behind the scenes DVD, something which is almost standard on all Collector’s Edition nowadays.
The Legendary Edition though, is a slightly different story, almost costing double the Limited Edition, and only offering the Noble team statue, some in game content, and the box (yes the box is listed as a feature), which is way too big to display anywhere. Some people who have purchased the Legendary Edition may feel slightly cheated; after all you are not getting much more than the Limited Edition other than the statue. In my opinion though, the statue JUST barely worth that extra, and it’s much better than the kitty helmet you get from the Halo 3 Legendary Edition.
So to sum it up, the Limited Edition is excellent value and is a must have for any Halo fan or collector. The quality and inclusions for the Legendary Edition are definately hard to justify, but figurine collectors can probably appreciate it the most.
Amazing!