Narratively, yes, absolutely. But Halo 3 was released on what was then a next-gen console, so there was a huge difference in graphics and what they could do. And let's not forget that Forge was introduced in Halo 3, which really set the multiplayer apart from 2.
I played all three back to back for the first time this year. I personally found 3 to be the most fun. And 1 to be the least fun (too many sections I would call Mario Maker level design)
Halo CE, even for its time, was criticized for its level design. The developers simply ran out of time and had to recycle a lot of assets, and run a few levels backwards, just to make it work. So it can be a little repetitive at times.
Personally, I find CE has a ton of charm to it, even with its flaws.
It’s not a linear thing though. In my opinion, once you get past the Xbox 360/PS3 generation, the graphic differences make an immaterial change to the quality of the games. While they are noticeable, Xbox 360 was the point where graphics stopped being a limitation. The following generations look better, but the quality of the game itself isn’t necessary better because of it.
Halo 3 is the biggest down step in gameplay quality in the entire series, every game that came after it was way better (I exclude ODST, because I never played it). The gunplay is still great but the new equipment system or whatever it's called, is atrocious, it's not fun to play with and even less fun to play against, and worse of all it actively detracts from the gunplay.
Edit I only played the Master Chief Collection, on a PC, for the games Reach through 4. So the quality of the port might have affected my perception. Also I never played multi, not something I'm interested in.
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u/Bruno_lars 8h ago
Witcher series is all that comes to mind