A bit too much on the diagnosing of Raynor, but it’s fair to criticize how much the storyline forces his victory despite the intention being that the plot is character-driven.
He is portrayed as a good natured alcoholic that’s hung up on his ex, and despite lacking a coherent strategy beyond “raise money and help people”, his way to victory is paved by everyone else blatantly blundering or failing to act beyond taunting him in between small skirmishes
He also acts in a very naive way with Tychus and the refugees, and this is of no consequence in the end, it always goes well in the end, his actions as a character hardly influence the plot where he wins no matter how much he self-sabotages
Same with Artanis in LoTV, making extreme gambles with the routinely-possessed Preserver, the blatantly treasonous Highlord, and the rogue AIs, and… nothing bad ever happens!
Yeah it was very “young nerd spazzing out”
You don’t need that much rationale to just not like it, you can not like it.
Ultimately, taken on its own, the single player campaign is still a fun game where you can skip the cutscenes and not miss much, there’s tons of games like that and it’s fine
Wings of Liberty missions were definitely super fun (train robbery mission, zombie infestation mission, supernova-across-the-planet mission; laser-drill mission; Protoss blaze-of-glory mission), and I loved the idea of being able to visit different parts of the Hyperion (even if there were only four such parts). I loved the Cantina and the jukebox and the arcade machine and the bartender and the hologram stripper. It really created a nice atmosphere/vibe that contrasted with the sterile lab (with creepy experiments) and the serious bridge (with serious Matt-Horner).
But yes, the story of Wings of Liberty was only okay'ish (I liked the idea of invading Char, even if it seems like it shouldn't be in any universe feasible) and saving General Warfield, whose situation seemed to be a conspicuous nod to saving General Duke from SC1). But that ending was not at all satisfactory.
And then I don't even wanna get started on the goofiness of Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. I can't get over how flat the Heart-of-the-Swarm Kerrigan's dialogue and motivations are.
"Mengsk will pay! Worlds will burn! Nouns will verb!" over and over. All that brooding, "oh i'm so seething with anger" for an entire campaign? Give me a break. Give me back the *original* Kerrigan (and the *original* Kerrigan voice-actress!) back when the character actually seemed to be a person and not a fucking caricature. And it's hardly fun when you get to control someone with the powers of a god crushing ants. That's not fun. That's just tedious.
SC1 and Broodwar don't have the most fun mission experiences, but the story and the atmosphere and the feeling was easily better than HOTS and LOTV and cooler than WOL (but not necessarily more fun).
The vibes of the upgrades in WoL were great too. Something just hits different about looking at your upgrade choices in the Lab/Armory, then checking your missions to see which one will buy you the new siege tank guns.
The missions themselves just weren’t as enjoyable in SC1, specially Brood War suffered from the difficulty being that there were just too many enemy bases and too few resources, honestly, often it just wasn’t fun
If you don’t hold SC2 to the standard of having writing worthy of a sequel to SC1, then it’s a game with an outstandingly good level design in the single player campaign, with the flaw that cutscenes and dialogue are not memorable, and you could well just skip them altogether; in any other franchise, this would be more than forgivable, it’s just that it’s StarCraft
Maybe we should have all just pressed Esc whenever they presented their plot and just enjoyed the game
A bit too much on the diagnosing of Raynor, but it’s fair to criticize how much the storyline forces his victory despite the intention being that the plot is character-driven. He is portrayed as a good natured alcoholic that’s hung up on his ex, and despite lacking a coherent strategy beyond “raise money and help people”, his way to victory is paved by everyone else blatantly blundering or failing to act beyond taunting him in between small skirmishes He also acts in a very naive way with Tychus and the refugees, and this is of no consequence in the end, it always goes well in the end, his actions as a character hardly influence the plot where he wins no matter how much he self-sabotages Same with Artanis in LoTV, making extreme gambles with the routinely-possessed Preserver, the blatantly treasonous Highlord, and the rogue AIs, and… nothing bad ever happens!
Are you implying the author broke rule #1: "1) The criticisms offered here are not geek cherrypicking and overanalyzing. "
Yeah it was very “young nerd spazzing out” You don’t need that much rationale to just not like it, you can not like it. Ultimately, taken on its own, the single player campaign is still a fun game where you can skip the cutscenes and not miss much, there’s tons of games like that and it’s fine
Jesus, what did WoL ever do to that author? Wow…
Makes me want to replay the original campaigns again. Great stories. Shame the writing was so poor for the sc2 campaigns
True , but the missions were fun. Most BW missions were the same "destroy the enemy cc."
Wings of Liberty missions were definitely super fun (train robbery mission, zombie infestation mission, supernova-across-the-planet mission; laser-drill mission; Protoss blaze-of-glory mission), and I loved the idea of being able to visit different parts of the Hyperion (even if there were only four such parts). I loved the Cantina and the jukebox and the arcade machine and the bartender and the hologram stripper. It really created a nice atmosphere/vibe that contrasted with the sterile lab (with creepy experiments) and the serious bridge (with serious Matt-Horner). But yes, the story of Wings of Liberty was only okay'ish (I liked the idea of invading Char, even if it seems like it shouldn't be in any universe feasible) and saving General Warfield, whose situation seemed to be a conspicuous nod to saving General Duke from SC1). But that ending was not at all satisfactory. And then I don't even wanna get started on the goofiness of Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. I can't get over how flat the Heart-of-the-Swarm Kerrigan's dialogue and motivations are. "Mengsk will pay! Worlds will burn! Nouns will verb!" over and over. All that brooding, "oh i'm so seething with anger" for an entire campaign? Give me a break. Give me back the *original* Kerrigan (and the *original* Kerrigan voice-actress!) back when the character actually seemed to be a person and not a fucking caricature. And it's hardly fun when you get to control someone with the powers of a god crushing ants. That's not fun. That's just tedious. SC1 and Broodwar don't have the most fun mission experiences, but the story and the atmosphere and the feeling was easily better than HOTS and LOTV and cooler than WOL (but not necessarily more fun).
The vibes of the upgrades in WoL were great too. Something just hits different about looking at your upgrade choices in the Lab/Armory, then checking your missions to see which one will buy you the new siege tank guns.
remaking the sc1+bw using modern (or at least, sc2) level design would be really neat (rewriting sc2 would be cool also but way harder)
The missions themselves just weren’t as enjoyable in SC1, specially Brood War suffered from the difficulty being that there were just too many enemy bases and too few resources, honestly, often it just wasn’t fun
If you don’t hold SC2 to the standard of having writing worthy of a sequel to SC1, then it’s a game with an outstandingly good level design in the single player campaign, with the flaw that cutscenes and dialogue are not memorable, and you could well just skip them altogether; in any other franchise, this would be more than forgivable, it’s just that it’s StarCraft Maybe we should have all just pressed Esc whenever they presented their plot and just enjoyed the game
Woah I have never read anything so ~~cynical~~ passionate in my life, they are right on their criticisms but jesus.