Favorite SCII Campaign
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Legacy of the Void for me. I can't say the missions themselves were my favorite, but the storyline behind LotV sucked me in like a hoover vacuum. Pretty much every cinematic they had, hit all my "yes please" buttons when it comes to dramatic storytelling.
From that first cinematic of the initial wave of Protoss landing on their homeworld, the fight, the final stand of that lone zealot as the waves of zerg come at him. And you just see him reignite his twin blades like "come and get me motherfuckers!" to the sudden waves of reinforcements warping in behind him. To the
Just, fuck yes, more of that shit all day
And then the cinematic where
Just makes me giddy with joy.
I've always loved Blizzard for their cinematic storytelling skills, and the ones in Legacy of the Void were my fucking deal all day. I never played SC 1, or any of it's DLCs. I came in solely with SC 2, but damn did I love the storyline of those games. Legacy of the Void especially.
So...yeah, Legacy of the Void get's my vote.
From that first cinematic of the initial wave of Protoss landing on their homeworld, the fight, the final stand of that lone zealot as the waves of zerg come at him. And you just see him reignite his twin blades like "come and get me motherfuckers!" to the sudden waves of reinforcements warping in behind him. To the
Fight between Artanis and Zeratul, with Zeratul giving the line you've heard a million times from the Protoss, but this time, with a finality and weight that you just don't really feel when your little troops say it on the mission itself. "My life...for Aiur", and then he gives his life to make sure he is able to get the strike he needs to get in.
And then the cinematic where
Artanis stands alone against the zerg waves, and basically involuntarily does the trial of the dark protoss, to defend the reactor long enough for it to blow up all the zerg and that planet.
I've always loved Blizzard for their cinematic storytelling skills, and the ones in Legacy of the Void were my fucking deal all day. I never played SC 1, or any of it's DLCs. I came in solely with SC 2, but damn did I love the storyline of those games. Legacy of the Void especially.
So...yeah, Legacy of the Void get's my vote.
Wings of Liberty was my first foray into SC and while it the campaign was mildly enjoyable, too much of it just boiled down to making money. I can't really remember any highlights, but I remember disliking the missions where you just controlled one guy or a tiny squad. The last mission was neat I guess as it really felt like the Zerg were going all out.
Wings of Liberty
Legacy of the Void
Heart of the Swarm
Wings is the best in my mind, since the missions were fun, the 'Space Cowboy' aspect of the early campaign was oddly endearing (and transitioned nicely into the 'Save the Universe' part of the later campaign, save a few Narmy speeches) and the variety of the missions, units and upgrades were all quite interesting to play around with on multiple play-throughs. Being able to pick and choose which missions you wanted to do was an awful lot of fun, since nothing was stopping you going back and doing a level you were *supposed* to only have Marines and Medics for, and air-dropping a half-dozen Thors on the enemy base.
Legacy of the Void comes next - not as tight as Wings in design, but still fun; some of the missions were an arse-and-a-half to play since they often asked you to do things that would be much easier with the units introduced in the later mission, but the writing was solid and the character interactions were rather nice. Plus Alarak just hits that warm little spot in my heart for classic Q just right.
Heart of the Swarm was... alright. Writing wasn't the best, and besides Kerrigan and the Admiral I just... didn't give a fuck about any of the other characters. Missions suffered because of the Zerg play style - they're Zerg, you're supposed to wash over the enemy in a swarm of bodies, not defend zones or build choke points. Unit upgrades tended to be pretty uninteresting since half of 'em were designed to make the Zerg do things the Zerg weren't designed to do, and half the missions you just ended up soloing with Kerrigan anyway since she was so ridiculously powerful. Still fun to playthrough, but nowhere near as good as the other two when it comes down to it.
Legacy of the Void
Heart of the Swarm
Wings is the best in my mind, since the missions were fun, the 'Space Cowboy' aspect of the early campaign was oddly endearing (and transitioned nicely into the 'Save the Universe' part of the later campaign, save a few Narmy speeches) and the variety of the missions, units and upgrades were all quite interesting to play around with on multiple play-throughs. Being able to pick and choose which missions you wanted to do was an awful lot of fun, since nothing was stopping you going back and doing a level you were *supposed* to only have Marines and Medics for, and air-dropping a half-dozen Thors on the enemy base.
Legacy of the Void comes next - not as tight as Wings in design, but still fun; some of the missions were an arse-and-a-half to play since they often asked you to do things that would be much easier with the units introduced in the later mission, but the writing was solid and the character interactions were rather nice. Plus Alarak just hits that warm little spot in my heart for classic Q just right.
Heart of the Swarm was... alright. Writing wasn't the best, and besides Kerrigan and the Admiral I just... didn't give a fuck about any of the other characters. Missions suffered because of the Zerg play style - they're Zerg, you're supposed to wash over the enemy in a swarm of bodies, not defend zones or build choke points. Unit upgrades tended to be pretty uninteresting since half of 'em were designed to make the Zerg do things the Zerg weren't designed to do, and half the missions you just ended up soloing with Kerrigan anyway since she was so ridiculously powerful. Still fun to playthrough, but nowhere near as good as the other two when it comes down to it.
Wings of Liberty would be my favourite. It nailed the feel of the Terrans, and the space Western. Most of missions also often felt a bit more focused and tightly designed, whereas a lot of the missions in LotV and HotS felt more like some of the latter missions in WoL, too overengineered in some respects and more a grind than a challenge to get through.
There was some space magic bullshit in there, but it didn't bother me too much it being what it was.
Heart of the Swarm probably my least favourite overall. Wrex basically nailed it in that it kept trying to make the Zerg do things they weren't supposed to do. As the zerg, I want to run over all my enemies. You abandon bases and outposts that get attacked rather than bunkering down, as they're cheaply replaced, you have 5 others, and your swarm will eat through the enemy base faster. So many missions and map designs were based around the Terran method though, of having one or two bases, and you defend them until you can overtake the enemy. The swarm shouldn't be doing that. It should just keep growing.
Additionally, it seemed a little bit shaky in tone. I don't think it quite nailed Kerrigan's character and arc as well as it did Raynor's. It had some great moments, but was often inconsistent.
Legacy of the Void falls in the middle. There were a number of mechanically great additions, such as altering your army on the go, and it had some really great emotional moments. That said, some of the missions just didn't flow that well. Many did. Some had schizophrenic difficulty spikes, some just went on for too long, some just weren't that engaging to begin with. Another big problem on the whole that I also had with HotS, was the prevalence of the hybrids. So many missions had them, and they were just a pain to deal with. I often found them not-fun to deal with, whereas overwhelming swarms of zerg, terran or protoss were far more enjoyable to fight against. Kind of like Kerrigan in WoL, but there was only one of her.
Tonally I felt it also wavered a bit, but it wasn't too bad. Part of it potentially stemmed from it not really feeling like the galaxy was on fire and there was this big Amon issue that needed dealing with; it just felt the same as the previous two titles in that respect, which drained a lot of the feeling of urgency in beating Amon, as the same problems were around in WoL and HotS, just the units were slightly tougher now. Stepping things up to 11 for this might have helped, but IDK.
There was some space magic bullshit in there, but it didn't bother me too much it being what it was.
Heart of the Swarm probably my least favourite overall. Wrex basically nailed it in that it kept trying to make the Zerg do things they weren't supposed to do. As the zerg, I want to run over all my enemies. You abandon bases and outposts that get attacked rather than bunkering down, as they're cheaply replaced, you have 5 others, and your swarm will eat through the enemy base faster. So many missions and map designs were based around the Terran method though, of having one or two bases, and you defend them until you can overtake the enemy. The swarm shouldn't be doing that. It should just keep growing.
Additionally, it seemed a little bit shaky in tone. I don't think it quite nailed Kerrigan's character and arc as well as it did Raynor's. It had some great moments, but was often inconsistent.
Legacy of the Void falls in the middle. There were a number of mechanically great additions, such as altering your army on the go, and it had some really great emotional moments. That said, some of the missions just didn't flow that well. Many did. Some had schizophrenic difficulty spikes, some just went on for too long, some just weren't that engaging to begin with. Another big problem on the whole that I also had with HotS, was the prevalence of the hybrids. So many missions had them, and they were just a pain to deal with. I often found them not-fun to deal with, whereas overwhelming swarms of zerg, terran or protoss were far more enjoyable to fight against. Kind of like Kerrigan in WoL, but there was only one of her.
Tonally I felt it also wavered a bit, but it wasn't too bad. Part of it potentially stemmed from it not really feeling like the galaxy was on fire and there was this big Amon issue that needed dealing with; it just felt the same as the previous two titles in that respect, which drained a lot of the feeling of urgency in beating Amon, as the same problems were around in WoL and HotS, just the units were slightly tougher now. Stepping things up to 11 for this might have helped, but IDK.
For me it would have to be in the following order:
1) WoL
I just loved the space western feel of the campaign, and of all the 3 "main" characters Raynor's arc was the most relatable and fleshed out. The missions were fun, varied, thematic and there were oodles of interesting character interactions everywhere.
2)HotS
While good chunks of the plot were wishy-washy and Kerrigan's dialogue flitted inconsistently between ragey vengeance and sad acceptance of her lot in life, the missions were by far the most interesting, and the customization options for the zerg were fun and dynamic. Also, I love Abathur to bits. Such an interesting addition to the Zerg, and his missions are far and away my favourites.
3)LotV
The "on the fly" army customization was the best option of the bunch, and the intro missions for the main campaign section was a nice bit of narrative. However I found the missions themselves to be fairly boring, most of the dialogue between missions was bland and repetitive, and I felt like too much of the story relied on narrative convenience and hitherto unrevealed factions (Purifiers and the Spear of Adun 4eg) suddenly joining the fray.
Aside:
Her mission was to protect the zerg hive from the Protoss long enough for Tarsonis to be overrun, and believed that Mengsk would extract her once she'd done her job. To quote that very mission in SC1:
But Mensk didn't. He just ordered the fleet to jump, leaving her to captured by the Zerg, mutated into the Queen of Blades by an invasive and likely torturous process, then forced to kill millions of people she had once sworn to protect and save. And once she'd been freed from the Zerg brainwashing, Mengsk kept on trying to kill her and supposedly "killed" the only man she ever loved, only to revealed he'd been captured instead and would actually be killed if Kerrigan came anywhere near Mengsk.
I would consider any of these reasons a legitimate justification for Kerrigan wanting to tear Mengsk's spine out one vertebrae at a time. All of them just makes it a no-brainer
As for Mensgk being "evvviiill!", I refer you to another quote from the Terran Campaign of SC1:
1) WoL
I just loved the space western feel of the campaign, and of all the 3 "main" characters Raynor's arc was the most relatable and fleshed out. The missions were fun, varied, thematic and there were oodles of interesting character interactions everywhere.
2)HotS
While good chunks of the plot were wishy-washy and Kerrigan's dialogue flitted inconsistently between ragey vengeance and sad acceptance of her lot in life, the missions were by far the most interesting, and the customization options for the zerg were fun and dynamic. Also, I love Abathur to bits. Such an interesting addition to the Zerg, and his missions are far and away my favourites.
3)LotV
The "on the fly" army customization was the best option of the bunch, and the intro missions for the main campaign section was a nice bit of narrative. However I found the missions themselves to be fairly boring, most of the dialogue between missions was bland and repetitive, and I felt like too much of the story relied on narrative convenience and hitherto unrevealed factions (Purifiers and the Spear of Adun 4eg) suddenly joining the fray.
Aside:
Except she didn't.mad825 said:
Her mission was to protect the zerg hive from the Protoss long enough for Tarsonis to be overrun, and believed that Mengsk would extract her once she'd done her job. To quote that very mission in SC1:
But Mensk didn't. He just ordered the fleet to jump, leaving her to captured by the Zerg, mutated into the Queen of Blades by an invasive and likely torturous process, then forced to kill millions of people she had once sworn to protect and save. And once she'd been freed from the Zerg brainwashing, Mengsk kept on trying to kill her and supposedly "killed" the only man she ever loved, only to revealed he'd been captured instead and would actually be killed if Kerrigan came anywhere near Mengsk.
I would consider any of these reasons a legitimate justification for Kerrigan wanting to tear Mengsk's spine out one vertebrae at a time. All of them just makes it a no-brainer
As for Mensgk being "evvviiill!", I refer you to another quote from the Terran Campaign of SC1:
This is a man who is perfectly willing to commit any crime, perform any atrocity, so long as he comes out on top. That might as well be the textbook definition of evil. So if you're having problems with Mengsk in SC2, why weren't you having the same problems with him back in SC1? His character has not majorly changed from his previous incarnation, save he's become more drunk on his power.