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Aotearoa39261 Posts
I gotta say, playing through this on Brutal was an incredibly enjoyable experience. The difficulty was at the perfect level for me. Often I would need to redo levels and really think about what strategy to use to beat the map, particularly the last level. In comparison to the first two games which were pretty easy.
I gotta give praise to the Spear of Adun. The different Protoss factions for each unit class was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So many iconic units were used and they felt really good to use. Corsairs, Reavers, Arbiters... god it was so good to finally blow shit up with scarabs. Dark Archons were a let down, but everything else felt really good. The new units like the energizer/centurian etc felt good as well. Solarite felt a little bit forced during the game, like why is this stuff everywhere for something so rare? But alas, that was the only weak point. The spear of adun's abilities were nice as well.
Lastly, the plot. Judging the game by cinematics is not the way to assess this games plot. Playing through the game felt like telling a good story and the cinematics bridged the plot between missions seamlessly. I shed a manly tear when Zeratul was killed but the way that was built it up made it work. Learning about the other Protoss factions was a little shallow but there was enough to tie it all together.
While WoL/HotS campaigns felt cheesy and often betrayed the original story, LotV really hit the nail on the head. There were a ton of references to BW which I really appreciated since they were always references and never retcons. Like Vorazun being the daughter of Razagal and so on. I also like that "Fenix" became his own identity, that was incredibly well handled.
This was a great experience. After the first two games I didn't really expect anything but was blown away. Well done Blizzard. My faith is restored.
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The cinematics were sick, the gameplay was genuinely fun but the ending was awful and the epilogue was just weird. Still, I enjoyed it on hard and I'll do a brutal playthrough later on.
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I am not satisfied by the campaign. I liked both WoL and HotS, the gameplay at least because the story had some issues.
The first few missions of LotV are really good, the story and characters and the things we learn about the Protoss factions are interesting. After some time though the missions seem very similar with very few of them standing out, the characters become one-dimensional and predictable.
We are at the end of times but there is no urgency. I don't know, something doesn't feel right. I think they just finished the game earlier than they should. The epilogue missions are just...disappointing. I think the ending is really bad.
I had fun playing the campaign but I was hoping for something better.
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Ending is just pathetic, it is even worse in comparison to first two parts. Also, Zeratul/Artanis fight scene is laughable.
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9069 Posts
The biggest problem for me was the lack of compelling villain. Amon's motives were incredibly cliche and Lotv gave little payoff for waiting 2 games to fight against him. That problem was also caused by the structure of story telling and having 3 separate campaigns all from the perspective of the protagonists. In BW you literally fucked shit up as zerg and the queen of blades which added a lot of weight to the story. In SC2 the bad guys just appeared as portraits ingame saying something dumb like 'Prepare to die !11!'. Judging by the final act of the game the whole story was about Kerrigans redemption, but given that she became good at the end of the first game, got the guy she loved in the second (and rejected him) and consequently killed the person responsible for her suffering and the suffering of many, her eventual confrontation of the end of lotv had zero weight to it cause by that time everyone was totally cool with her.
I think blizzard missed a great opportunity to keep Kerrigan as the main villain and have her confront Amon at the end out of personal interests (like Amon killing everything would mean also the extinction of her beloved zerg). This would have created a darth vader type of story arc where Kerrigan achieves redemption at the end by become a tragic anti hero, instead of being the main protagonist. Anyways, I will probably write my alternative take on the story in a blog, but my issue with the lotv campaign is that the story had little payoff.
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The biggest problem is a lack of sense at all, not lack of compelling villain. Unfortunatelly, its the fault of first two parts, where sense starter to crumble when the liche king Tassadar has been shown. Knowing that, great finale with angel Kerrigan seems to be almoust fitting ending to this clusterf***. But lets be honest, even ending with Edmund Duke's robotic brain-in-a-jar-with-a-tentacles as a final boss would be fitting at this point.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
I think blizzard missed a great opportunity to keep Kerrigan as the main villain and have her confront Amon at the end out of personal interests (like Amon killing everything would mean also the extinction of her beloved zerg). This would have created a darth vader type of story arc where Kerrigan achieves redemption at the end by become a tragic anti hero, instead of being the main protagonist. Anyways, I will probably write my alternative take on the story in a blog, but my issue with the lotv campaign is that the story had little payoff.
We already have this with Alarak. And I really loved how they portrayed him. For me, Alarak is the new Kerrigan-typo character who manipulated others to get control over Tal'Darims.
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9069 Posts
Alarak was basically the comic relief of the campaign
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While I agree Amon wasn't a compelling villain, he honestly didn't need to be.
Amon is an evil torrent of destruction. He just wants to destroy everything, and he had overwhelming power that no one (Except you know who) could match.
I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign on brutal. Every mission was challenging and this is the first time I felt engaged in the story.It did everything I expected and more.
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I really didn't like the ending. Not because it was cheesy but because it felt like it was rushed. The last cinematic was really confusing. We see Kerrigan attacking Amon and that's it. Nothing more. Why was the last cinematic of the game so short? It felt like they were running out of money because I really don't understand why the ending was so rushed. Where were the huge explosions or even something that SHOWS Amon being actually destroyed? inb4 Blizzard comes with SC3 and the plottwist "Amon is still alive."
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My gripes:
Tedious moralizing Stating the obvious again, and again, and again, in King James English Terrible delivery by most voice actors All good characters are flat stereotypes that come off as annoying Characterization is driven by a contrived (and subpar) plot instead of the other way around
I don't think Blizzard is incompetent. Management obviously aimed for something guaranteed inoffensive to market to as broad an audience as possible. Intriguing, mature plotlines are hard to translate and risk stepping on someone's cultural/religious taboos. "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public."
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Cons:
In hindsight, the secret mission in BW w/the hybrid/ancient race references really messed up the storyline for me, seeing how Blizzard basically took that and based at least half a trilogy out of it.
There were too many over-the-top mystic/prophecy/fantasy-type elements, really steering away from the dark but (arguably) more realistic plot from SC/BW and even WoL. That epilogue was just... wat
Also how many important things in this universe are powered or controller by 3-5 somewhat guarded and easy to destroy objects, heh. At least the Xel'Naga used more, sorta-hard-to-destroy objects. Got kinda dull for me.
Not being able to use the new characters in the game a lot (Phase-Smith Rory Swann, Fenix-robot, Vorazun) kinda takes away from my connection to them
No disruptor : |
Pros:
But reaver and corsair : )
Spear of Adun is fantastic! I love how the upgrade/decision system maintains the WoL/HotS feel too.
I liked how Rohana was written in for the most part. I was totally expecting a backstab from either her (via Amon) or Alarak.
I loved Alarak, wishe he was introduced earlier! Something about the tone of the guy's voice and the attitude just made me rofl every time he talked.
Challenge factor of missions. Brutal was actually brutal for me and about half-way through I just decided to switch to hard, thinking that I could enjoy a slower pace and some of the subtle aesthetics of the game, actually being able to finish the campaign in a decent time, all while still being challenged. Looking forward to going back and doing a handful of Brutal missions though (except for those "defense large base until X time" ones)
My blink micro is stellar compared to a week ago
Really like that platform level, other than it being a "destroy X same things" level.
I'm excited that sometime during the holidays, I'm probably gonna play Mass Recall (SC/BW remake on SC2) and the SC2 trilogy all the way through again : )
The mission with Alarak vs. Ma'lash pushing each other around was pretty cool, I think there could have been more interesting interactions though!
More thoughts than this but... I just finished maybe half an hour ago and still kinda vibing. The actual ending "ending scene" (not the missions) was cheesy, but honestly, made me smile. I was like 13 years old when I first played SC and I really did like the Jim Raynor character, and now it's kinda like seeing an old friend retire into the sunset
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On November 11 2015 20:19 frajen86 wrote: In hindsight, the secret mission in BW w/the hybrid/ancient race references really messed up the storyline for me, seeing how Blizzard basically took that and based at least half a trilogy out of it.
It still could have been handled better if Bllizzard made it with coution. Hybrid danger should be left in a shadow for most part, when well established characters are fighting their petty battles for vangence/domination/justice/whatever, and than just hit the main plot with one powerfull strike. I mean look what they did with Duran. It was great material for main villain of the series. He already earned the hate in BW arguably even more than Mengsk did in SC1. His machinations killed Stukov and he was inderectly responsible for death of Fenix and Rashagal. Every his appearing in SC2 should be a red herring to some bad event - death of important character for example. Instead, he was completely insignificant plot-wise, and the whole hybrid plot was too much in a daylight to be climatic.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Three thoughts on the epilogue:
1) Turning Tassadar into a Xel'Naga was really dumb since it undercuts the significance of the SC1 plotline. Unless I misunderstood, and in actuality the friendly Xel'Naga was just using his form to communicate with Zeratul. That would make more sense (I'll make it my head canon at least). Yay, others have confirmed that Ouros never was Tassadar, just stealing his image to convince Zeratul to fulfill "prophecy", which is more like Ouros's anti-Amon plan. 2) Where did Jim go after Kerrigan turned up? Seemed to me like he ascended to become Xel'Naga/chill in the Void with Kerrigan. 3) What happened to Artanis?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2015 18:45 disciple wrote: The biggest problem for me was the lack of compelling villain. Amon's motives were incredibly cliche and Lotv gave little payoff for waiting 2 games to fight against him. That problem was also caused by the structure of story telling and having 3 separate campaigns all from the perspective of the protagonists. In BW you literally fucked shit up as zerg and the queen of blades which added a lot of weight to the story. In SC2 the bad guys just appeared as portraits ingame saying something dumb like 'Prepare to die !11!'. Judging by the final act of the game the whole story was about Kerrigans redemption, but given that she became good at the end of the first game, got the guy she loved in the second (and rejected him) and consequently killed the person responsible for her suffering and the suffering of many, her eventual confrontation of the end of lotv had zero weight to it cause by that time everyone was totally cool with her.
I think blizzard missed a great opportunity to keep Kerrigan as the main villain and have her confront Amon at the end out of personal interests (like Amon killing everything would mean also the extinction of her beloved zerg). This would have created a darth vader type of story arc where Kerrigan achieves redemption at the end by become a tragic anti hero, instead of being the main protagonist. Anyways, I will probably write my alternative take on the story in a blog, but my issue with the lotv campaign is that the story had little payoff. I dno man, were we playing the same game? Amon was never going to be a Joker-esque villain with depth but at least his actions were motivated and made sense after playing the game. (i.e. that he wanted to break the infinite cycle and become eternal remaking the universe as he saw fit). The temple of unification mission had some nice plot elements to it that connected a few dots together to make everything make sense.
I'll also add that the ending left the fact that Zagara reclaimed her sector using force (hinting that she's basically going to continue to destroy worlds) while Alarac explicitly rejected peace terms between Tal'Darim and the Templar. Plenty of tension left in this universe to explore.
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On November 11 2015 21:27 Plexa wrote: I dno man, were we playing the same game? Amon was never going to be a Joker-esque villain with depth but at least his actions were motivated and made sense after playing the game. (i.e. that he wanted to break the infinite cycle and become eternal remaking the universe as he saw fit).
You must understand, Plexa, that after SC1 and BW campaign, that was full of scheming, genre savy villains like Mengsk, Kerrigan and Duran, many of us are unsatisfied with warcraftesque-type villains like Amon. Hell, even Overmind, who was closest to that type of big bad, was done at last with properly intimidating appearance. Amon has nothing like that.
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9069 Posts
On November 11 2015 21:27 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2015 18:45 disciple wrote: The biggest problem for me was the lack of compelling villain. Amon's motives were incredibly cliche and Lotv gave little payoff for waiting 2 games to fight against him. That problem was also caused by the structure of story telling and having 3 separate campaigns all from the perspective of the protagonists. In BW you literally fucked shit up as zerg and the queen of blades which added a lot of weight to the story. In SC2 the bad guys just appeared as portraits ingame saying something dumb like 'Prepare to die !11!'. Judging by the final act of the game the whole story was about Kerrigans redemption, but given that she became good at the end of the first game, got the guy she loved in the second (and rejected him) and consequently killed the person responsible for her suffering and the suffering of many, her eventual confrontation of the end of lotv had zero weight to it cause by that time everyone was totally cool with her.
I think blizzard missed a great opportunity to keep Kerrigan as the main villain and have her confront Amon at the end out of personal interests (like Amon killing everything would mean also the extinction of her beloved zerg). This would have created a darth vader type of story arc where Kerrigan achieves redemption at the end by become a tragic anti hero, instead of being the main protagonist. Anyways, I will probably write my alternative take on the story in a blog, but my issue with the lotv campaign is that the story had little payoff. I dno man, were we playing the same game? Amon was never going to be a Joker-esque villain with depth but at least his actions were motivated and made sense after playing the game. (i.e. that he wanted to break the infinite cycle and become eternal remaking the universe as he saw fit). The temple of unification mission had some nice plot elements to it that connected a few dots together to make everything make sense. I'll also add that the ending left the fact that Zagara reclaimed her sector using force (hinting that she's basically going to continue to destroy worlds) while Alarac explicitly rejected peace terms between Tal'Darim and the Templar. Plenty of tension left in this universe to explore.
Wasnt that the plot of the avengers age of ultron and basically every other generic villain that wants to change the world by killing everyone? Thats my issue with it - Kerrigan was much better as a baddie, she had character and very real motive - being fucked up and betrayed. Amon was literally the AI realizing a flaw in the system and taking extreme measures to fix it. And we spent 2 games waiting for him to become a real threat? As others said, that was the real issue of introducing the cosmic conflict of the xelnaga. The story had literally nothing to do with that and when it became important it was like oh right lets do something about it. In fact the only catalyst for that story was corrupting the Khala. Kerrigan literally had nothing to do until she popped up in the temple being like dude im fighting these fuckers for days.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2015 21:44 disciple wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2015 21:27 Plexa wrote:On November 11 2015 18:45 disciple wrote: The biggest problem for me was the lack of compelling villain. Amon's motives were incredibly cliche and Lotv gave little payoff for waiting 2 games to fight against him. That problem was also caused by the structure of story telling and having 3 separate campaigns all from the perspective of the protagonists. In BW you literally fucked shit up as zerg and the queen of blades which added a lot of weight to the story. In SC2 the bad guys just appeared as portraits ingame saying something dumb like 'Prepare to die !11!'. Judging by the final act of the game the whole story was about Kerrigans redemption, but given that she became good at the end of the first game, got the guy she loved in the second (and rejected him) and consequently killed the person responsible for her suffering and the suffering of many, her eventual confrontation of the end of lotv had zero weight to it cause by that time everyone was totally cool with her.
I think blizzard missed a great opportunity to keep Kerrigan as the main villain and have her confront Amon at the end out of personal interests (like Amon killing everything would mean also the extinction of her beloved zerg). This would have created a darth vader type of story arc where Kerrigan achieves redemption at the end by become a tragic anti hero, instead of being the main protagonist. Anyways, I will probably write my alternative take on the story in a blog, but my issue with the lotv campaign is that the story had little payoff. I dno man, were we playing the same game? Amon was never going to be a Joker-esque villain with depth but at least his actions were motivated and made sense after playing the game. (i.e. that he wanted to break the infinite cycle and become eternal remaking the universe as he saw fit). The temple of unification mission had some nice plot elements to it that connected a few dots together to make everything make sense. I'll also add that the ending left the fact that Zagara reclaimed her sector using force (hinting that she's basically going to continue to destroy worlds) while Alarac explicitly rejected peace terms between Tal'Darim and the Templar. Plenty of tension left in this universe to explore. Wasnt that the plot of the avengers age of ultron and basically every other generic villain that wants to change the world by killing everyone? Thats my issue with it - Kerrigan was much better as a baddie, she had character and very real motive - being fucked up and betrayed. Amon was literally the AI realizing a flaw in the system and taking extreme measures to fix it. And we spent 2 games waiting for him to become a real threat? As others said, that was the real issue of introducing the cosmic conflict of the xelnaga. The story had literally nothing to do with that and when it became important it was like oh right lets do something about it. In fact the only catalyst for that story was corrupting the Khala. Kerrigan literally had nothing to do until she popped up in the temple being like dude im fighting these fuckers for days. Often it's not about the big points of the plot but how the plot is executed. I mean every star wars movie basically has the same formula but three of them are significantly worse than the other three. Despite Amon feeling generic I did feel like we were completely fucked during the campaign and really felt the desperation of the Protoss. Finishing off Amon seemed like more of a formality than anything else.
I'll concede that if Kerrigan remained a villain that the plot would have been stronger for it (can we just forget HotS ever happened holy shit) but with the way the pieces were set up I thought it was a strong conclusion to the series. You incite more rage by abandoning the arc you are on rather than making the best of a bad situation. And by that metric this was a huge success. And those complex villains you want have been put in place for the next series of games.
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On November 11 2015 21:54 Plexa wrote: Often it's not about the big points of the plot but how the plot is executed.
IMO story-wise execution was horrible, and established Metzen or whoever wrote that, on Ed Wood level. Gameplay-wise all of SC2 campaigns were executed well, and i have no major complains about that.
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On November 11 2015 21:21 Plexa wrote: Three thoughts on the epilogue: 1) Turning Tassadar into a Xel'Naga was really dumb since it undercuts the significance of the SC1 plotline. Unless I misunderstood, and in actuality the friendly Xel'Naga was just using his form to communicate with Zeratul. That would make more sense (I'll make it my head canon at least). 2) Where did Jim go after Kerrigan turned up? Seemed to me like he ascended to become Xel'Naga/chill in the Void with Kerrigan. 3) What happened to Artanis?
1) I think the XelNaga dude specifically says that he used Tassadar image so that Zeratul would believe him. So he did actually lie to Zeratul (and to the rest of them in that mission) 2) HE WENT INTO THE SUNSET 3) I guess it's reasonable to assume he continued to be a leader of united Protoss?
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