Drake's LotV Review/Recap [SPOILERIFFIC]

[TheEconomist]

Thoughts so far. I'm slugging through Brutal while refusing to do the easy strats, so I'm behind.

The story focuses on conflict, therefore, an immense improvement regardless of the writing being basically the same.

The game play is good, still a decent challenge so far on brutal, HotS was a disappointment.

Protoss are still comic relief in a lot of ways, the twists still revolve around how much they mess up.

Well, I'm going to withhold judgement until I see a full let's play, but I'll throw a comment or two out there.

You could always actually just play the game lol

[Drake Clawfang]

Seems like you're saying the ending sucks mainly because it feels like "stuff is happening". I'm not surprised since that is what all Sc2's story amounts to really.

No, the ending doesn't suck. The last mission is a letdown, but the ending is fine.

Anyhoo, your review on the missions needs beefing up since you're focusing on how the story impacts the mission rather than how they play. I want to know how the variety of missions and mission gimmicks fare compared to WoL (because WoL was fun to play)? Are they more replayable than compared to HotS? How many build base and destroy enemy-type missions are there? Are they centred around a core unit or is their some flexibility in how a mission plays out?

I did address that? Most of the missions fit the same mold, unfortunately: "destroy or defend these three/four key structures." Some have more creative mechanics, but objective wise that's almost universally what you're tossed. Here's a rundown of them all:

*For Aiur!: The first mission, get a huge force of Protoss and free up the three warp conduits. Bonus objective, destroy the hatcheries.
*The Growing Shadow: A Zeratul mission and pretty much just the second prophecy mission again. Optional objective, find the void pylons for some free units each.
*Spear of Adun: Destroy the zerg infestation around the power cells to awaken the Spear of Adun (nice touch: it's resting beneath the Heart of the Conclave). Bonus objective, power up the warp gates.
*Sky Shield: Attack and secure the damaged stabaliziers to stop the platform's descent, as you save each once time is added to the countdown before impact. Bonus objective, destroy EMP generators.
*Brothers In Arms: Destroy the enemy base, along the way save some research stations to get medics and sci vessels to support you. Though this does have an interesting mechanic: they're using the Xel'naga artifact (FYI, that's the Keystone mentioned before) to create disruptions that stun Terrans, and Raynor and Valerian are allying you with their own bases. So when a disruption hits, you have free reign to wail on the Terrans mercilessly, but the Hybrid come out to play and you have to defend Raynor and Valerian from them.
Forbidden Weapon: Reach the technology vault before the Tal'darim purification beam weaves its way across the map to destroy it (the beam is moving across the map and kills shit it hits, including you if you don't avoid it). Along the way retrieve some solarite samples. Also you can find Sentries in stasis across the map and reactivate them.
Amon's Reach: Reactivate the launch bays to evac Shakuras while defending the warp conduit they're escaping to. Also void thrashers spawn, siege-type hybrids, kill them to defend the conduit. Along the way find some solarite caches.
Last Stand: A highlight of the campaign. Destroy the three Zenith Stones holding the Xel'naga Temple's energies in check. When they're gone, hold out for the counter to reach 1 billion zerg on Shakuras, then blow the temple to kill them all. Or hold out for 1.5 billion as Karax retrieves some solarite from inside the temple.
Temple of Unification: Destroy Amon's forces occupying the celestial locks and hold them until you have them all. Also there's a giant Tal'darim warp prism, kill it for its solarite core.
The Infinite Cycle: The Artie and Kerry mission where they team up to fight through the temple, an installation mission. Along the way find some Xel'naga relics for solarite.
Harbinger of Oblivion: Destroy the void crystals before the rising void energy destroys Kerrigan's bases. Along the way find some Xel'naga vessels that have solarite.
Unsealing the Past: The Purifier Megalith will automatically seek out the stasis locks, provide units to clear the way for it to each of them (basically, it's the Odin mission again). Along the way destroy some power cores with Solarite.
Purification: Destroy the null circuits in each quadrant to reactivate part of the Purifier army. Each three you destroy in the same area, some Purifiers come online and attack and wipe out the Zerg in their quadrant.
Templar's Charge: Using primarily aerial forces, hunt down and destroy the power cores. Along the way destroy the stasis chambers. However, the mission does have a unique mechanic: your base is on a moving platform on tracks between asteroids with mineral caches, and when your original base runs out due to low starting resources, you can physically move the platform and your entire base on it down the tracks to the next field. However it doesn't amount to much in practice, it just means ground units are unreliable (you get the Carrier in this mission) and if your base is attacked you can move it down the tracks for safety while your Carriers fly back for defense.
Steps of the Rite: Destroy Ma'lash's four guardians, along the way destroy some Tal'darim motherships for solarite. The mechanic here is Terrazine fog, when it grows thick, rifts to the Void open and spectres of units pop out and attack, think the Shadows of the Void in the prologue but for all three races.
Rak'shir: Another highlight of the campaign and a more creative mission. Alarak and Ma'lash are dueling back and forth on a carpet that runs between two pits on opposite sides of the map: naturally, push the other back into the pit. By the rules of the duel, no one can interfere directly. However, supporters can lend their psionic energy to the duelist they favor to power them up. Thus, supply Alarak with an army to boost his power and let him push Ma'lash back, while killing the Tal'darim that come to support Ma'lash before he can push Alarak back. Also kill some Slayn beasts that shit out solarite. No, really: Karax says solarite appears to be a "byproduct" of their unusual digestive system, and Artanis realizes what he means and is squicked out.
Templar's Return: Another highlight, take control of pairs of heroes as they each separately destroy the power structures that create Aiur's psi-matrix. This is the "everyone has their chance to be awesome" bit; Alarak and Vorazun just charge in slaughtering while Vorazun uses shadow powers to slip by some stuff, Alarak gets an awesome moment I won't ruin (mostly because, if you haven't picked up on it yet, he's the best part of the campaign so there's other awesome moments I can talk about), Karax uses his understanding of Khala stuff to reverse Amon's control of robotic units and structures to build an army to assault their objective with Fenix, and Artanis leads an expedition into the Xel'naga caves rescuing reinforcements from the other three tribes along the way.
The Host: Destroy the Void Shards, optionally clear out some positions for the other three tribes to land and help you. Again, a nice touch here: Amon built the containment unit that is powering up his primary host body... on the carcass of the Overmind, so he could absorb energy and body mass from it as needed.
Salvation: Basically the final WoL mission again, defend the Keystone against an onslaught of enemies and some specialized enemy waves. Also the three tribes help you here by each defending an entrance while Artie/You defend the Keystone itself, but you can of course station defenses and defenders alongside them.

The epilogue is simply, too.

Mission 1 - take control of the protoss and push north to Narud, along the way the zerg and terrans help you, as you clear out enemies they move their position ahead.
Mission 2 - take control of the terrans and basically do the laser drill mission combined with the artifact mission: defend Kerrigan (Artie and Zagara have their bases, too) until she fully powers up, and if needed use her celestial beam to kill shit. The only catch is that when she attacks she diverts her focus from powering up, pausing the charge-up, so you can't use her willy-nilly.
Mission 3 - take control of the zerg and hunt down and destroy the seven void crystals that spawn around the map at regular intervals. Raynor and Artie have their own bases to help you.

So yeah, as I said, while there's some more fun mechanics in them, most missions are "attack/defend these key buildings."

Tell me more of the Stukov stuff, please.

Narud is alive in the Void: he's a Xel'naga, and by their nature their spirit returns to the Void when their physical form is destroyed. The actual confrontation, go to the 25 minute mark in this video.

[DarthYam]

1) technically, that's a retcon. He was pretty mustache-y in HotS/WoL. That, and I don't get why mustache-y villains can't be fun. Maybe Amon's better not being one, but there are good ones out there. Like Shang Tsung, for example.

2) I actually like how Kerri disappears from the story at that point. The storytelling in SC/BW was about everyone in the Sector, not merely a couple of MCs. Kerri herself is the Overmind's pet project, but not his entire objective. That and I don't remember him saying anything directly about her assimilating Protoss -- that end was more about just assimilating humanity in general, so once Kerrigan's genetics are uploaded into the swarm, they technically don't need her for that purpose anymore. It's probable the Overmind had other uses for her, or in general just wanted to play around with having a human servant with a degree of free will, and see what happened.

The way the overmind talked about her implied that he saw her as more than a pet project. Also, I thought that in some ways it made the overmind smarter. He was basically a slave and he still managed to completely outplay his master and undermine his plans in the process.

Kerrigan becoming an anti heroine also worked. In the first game she's tough but has admirable qualities (She doesn't want to use the zerg on tarsonis even though the government basically made her life a living hell up until Mengsk freed her, whereas in Brood War she does horrible things largely for her amusement and on people who really never did anything to wrong her. Tassadar just humiliated her the one time, while the rest of the protoss didn't do a damn thing. As such the implication that the infestation process did something like supress morality or amplify violence and anger made sense and implied she wasn't entirely in control.)

[Drake Clawfang]

Also - if they're gonna do voice packs, we need an Alarak advisor. Think of the possibilities.

"Your minerals are as lacking as your tactics."
"A nuclear missile has been launched. Better run."
"Your forces are spilling blood as we speak."
"Our probes are being massacred. Return the favor."

[ragnarok]

Also - if they're gonna do voice packs, we need an Alarak advisor. Think of the possibilities.

"Your minerals are as lacking as your tactics."
"A nuclear missile has been launched. Better run."
"Your forces are spilling blood as we speak."
"Our probes are being massacred. Return the favor."

Pretty good, but I saw him more arrogant than that.

[Nissa]

Protoss are still comic relief in a lot of ways, the twists still revolve around how much they mess up.

Perhaps my single biggest problem with the whole sequel.

You could always actually just play the game lol

Dat cost money, friend.

[ragnarok]

Perhaps my single biggest problem with the whole sequel.

But that's been the flaw with the Protoss since SC1. Look how long it took the Conclave to finally see the errors of their ways.

[Turalyon]

Wasn't expecting a breakdown of all the missions though much obliged, Drake. Given that there are only so many mission gimmicks before everything looks samey and repetitive, I was just curious about whether the gameplay shows enough variety and replayability compared to the previous entries.

My point is that he thought he was doing a good thing. He wasn't doing it for the sake of mustache twirling villainy. Whether the infinite cycle was so bad or if Amon was deluding himself doesn't change that his underlying motives were based on relatively benevolent intentions (compared to Mengsk who just wanted power)

Thing is, it's one thing to be told that what he thought he was doing a good thing, it's another to make one empathise with that position. Sure, Mengsk is revealed to be quite craven in Sc1 but you can empathise with and understand why he rants at Raynor's "betrayal" of him in The Hammer Falls because all his efforts do actually unify the Terran people against the alien threats (which is a "good" thing in utilitarian terms) and Raynor's actions threaten to underdo all his work and render all the harsh action he had to approve to get to that point meaningless.

What about Amon? Do we have any tangible reason to explain why he thinks planning the murder of multiple alien species is somehow better than just leaving them alone? How are his intentions considered more belevolent (at any level) than the course of action he eventually took? Planning to murder and then vaguely defending it by saying it'd make the world better doesn't make a villain any more empathisable/different than one, for the same crime, who offers no reason or is forthrightly delighted (the "moustache-twirler") about it.

I'd be more willing to believe that if after it became apparent that the dark templar were on Aiur (given the civil war going on the overmind probably would have noticed, and definately by the time of shadow hunters) the Overmind still left her behind on Char. From a dramatic standpoint he goes on about how she will help him assimilate the protoss, yet after Aldaris saves Zeratul and Tassadar's bacon she vanishes from the story.

You have to remember that the Overmind is not omniscient and that your own knowledge of what's going on (and what went on in retrospect), being an audience member, does not mean all other characters should have your intimate knowledge as well. The Protoss civil war occurs over two missions which have no Zerg involvement in them whatsoever, so we can't assume the Overmind knows the DT are there. The fact that Kerrigan doesn't show up on Aiur could be further used as circumstantial evidence that the Overmind didn't know the DTs/Tassadar had arrived, because if it did, she would be recalled to Aiur to assist. Then again, the Protoss were effectively doing Kerrigan's job by subduing Tassadar and the DT such that if the Overmind did know what was going on, it probably didn't feel the need to call Kerrigan onto Aiur because everything seemingly was under control. There's no reason to think that the Overmind itself thought that it was in danger up until Shadow Hunters occurs. By then, it's way too late for the Overmind to call Kerrigan since the Protoss immediately follow that up with an attack on the Overmind itself. Also, for all we know, Kerrigan probably still thought the Dark Templar were still on Char and was trying to root them out after all this time since she was easily misled by Tassadar and the DT are tricky to find.

As to how Kerrigan is/is not helping the Overmind assimilate the Protoss, you have to take into the account the role she's been left with on Char. She's fighting the only legitimate threat against the Zerg, how is that considered not helping the Overmind in general?

[ragnarok]

What about Amon? Do we have any tangible reason to explain why he thinks planning the murder of multiple alien species is somehow better than just leaving them alone? How are his intentions considered more belevolent (at any level) than the course of action he eventually took? Planning to murder and then vaguely defending it by saying it'd make the world better doesn't make a villain any more empathisable/different than one, for the same crime, who offers no reason or is forthrightly delighted (the "moustache-twirler") about it.

It's not. Mainly he's doing it simply because he thinks he can, and that's a pitiful excuse for a nihilistic villain. At the very least if he was planning to wipe out all life simply because he wanted to see the universe burn, and wasn't after anything logical....

[drakolobo]

destroy the universe may have valid and logical reasons


https://youtu.be/G-rl0tfQO9E
"Why not?":Rodar los ojos:
"If I can destroy the universe, it has no right to exist":enojado:

logic sacrificing all the current generation of living things, it ends with the suffering throughout the ages to future would cumulatively, infinitely superior.
the suffering of a single generation, to ensure end of pain. is a matter of perspective.
Amon longevity certainly can contribute to think that is the only solution to end the suffering. Most beings must go through the whole process cycle, and apparently xelnaga are the only beneficiaries of the Ascension, hence considered amon benefactor destroy a cycle that will bring pain to countless living beings.