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SirSamVimes
Jul 21, 2008

~* Challenge *~


You forgot to mention in your writeup that swarmlings are good for baneling heavy playstyles.

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Aces High
Mar 26, 2010

Nah! A little chocolate will do




Nuclear Kitten posted:

Honestly, I think that, if we have a prophecy that Kerrigan is gonna save the galaxy, then they should have kept her evil. Imagine a version of Starcraft 2 where Kerrigan is just unambiguously evil and out for revenge, and everyone in the know about the prophecy has to work around her, limiting the damage she causes without being able to actually stop her. Let the moment where she force chokes Valerian be about the fact that she knows she's required to stop the apocalypse, so what is anyone really going to do to stop her from killing Mengsk, or saving Jim, or whatever the hell she wants. That could have been a fun direction for the story to go.

the funny thing is that we get supporting characters that are like this, and one of them in Legacy of the Void wound up being more popular than Artanis. Then again, I'm not sure if that's strength of the writing or because of voiced him

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




Granted, it doesn’t help that Artanis just might be the most generic Hero McProtagonist character out of all of :blizz:’s catalogue

Bloody Pom
Jun 5, 2011



Regalingualius posted:

Granted, it doesn’t help that Artanis just might be the most generic Hero McProtagonist character out of all of :blizz:’s catalogue

It's honestly a real shame, because his voice actor in SC2 is this dude. Just look at that range.

Xarn
Jun 26, 2015

PurpleXVI posted:

So am I reading it right that the +2 damage upgrade from being a Raptor is essentially a +30% damage increase? That's pretty big, especially when the increased mobility also lets you "safely" pick the +50% attack speed, at which point you're getting pretty close to doubled damage output.

More once you count enemy armor.

It is really good.

bladededge
Sep 17, 2017

im sorry every one. the throne of heroes ran out of new heroic spirits so the grail had to summon existing ones in swimsuits instead

Nuclear Kitten posted:

Honestly, I think that, if we have a prophecy that Kerrigan is gonna save the galaxy, then they should have kept her evil. Imagine a version of Starcraft 2 where Kerrigan is just unambiguously evil and out for revenge, and everyone in the know about the prophecy has to work around her, limiting the damage she causes without being able to actually stop her. Let the moment where she force chokes Valerian be about the fact that she knows she's required to stop the apocalypse, so what is anyone really going to do to stop her from killing Mengsk, or saving Jim, or whatever the hell she wants. That could have been a fun direction for the story to go.

I wish the writers hadn't gone for lazy hack writing tropes like Ancient Prophecies and allowed Kerrigan to have agency as the force in the setting that managed to outplay all the rest of the factions simultaneously. Plot could easily have involved our heroes working around and mitigating the damage she's doing without "but you can't kill her because prophecy" being a factor. You can't kill her because "she's Queen Bitch of the Universe and destroyed the Dominion military remnants, UED fleet and most of the shakuras protoss forces simultaneously the last time anyone tried" is a valid excuse.

But in making Zerg!Kerrigan a different personality than Human!Kerrigan right at the start and invalidating basically everything she accomplished all at once so she could pine for her troo luv, made the writers' priorities clear here. This character is not _allowed_ to enjoy the fruits of her accomplishments.

Combined with what we now know about corporate culture at ActiBlizz I absolutely wonder if cheapening the accomplished female major character was intentional.

aniviron
Sep 11, 2014


Somehow I don't feel like the narrative geniuses who worked on this project would have been able to successfully & convincingly manage to execute on a plot where the main character has to outthink everyone else in the Koprulu sector. It would have been one of those agonizing stories where the writer thinks they are very clever despite the fact that even a kid could poke holes in the plans of the protagonist.

the Orb of Zot
Jun 25, 2013

Apport: the Orb of Zot
The orb shrieks as your magic touches it!
Yoink! You pull the item towards yourself.
You see here the Orb of Zot.

bladededge posted:

I wish the writers hadn't gone for lazy hack writing tropes like Ancient Prophecies and allowed Kerrigan to have agency as the force in the setting that managed to outplay all the rest of the factions simultaneously. Plot could easily have involved our heroes working around and mitigating the damage she's doing without "but you can't kill her because prophecy" being a factor. You can't kill her because "she's Queen Bitch of the Universe and destroyed the Dominion military remnants, UED fleet and most of the shakuras protoss forces simultaneously the last time anyone tried" is a valid excuse.

But in making Zerg!Kerrigan a different personality than Human!Kerrigan right at the start and invalidating basically everything she accomplished all at once so she could pine for her troo luv, made the writers' priorities clear here. This character is not _allowed_ to enjoy the fruits of her accomplishments.

Combined with what we now know about corporate culture at ActiBlizz I absolutely wonder if cheapening the accomplished female major character was intentional.

Hell, you could have kept the PROPHECY and still have done that! You even can have characters ponder whether following an ancient prophecy that could have been misinterpreted or made up to deal with a future threat that may not exist is worth deliberately leaving alive the current biggest threat.

You could even have some of the villains act on this! Kerrigan taking the prophecy as almost literal plot armor to commit even more war crimes, Mengsk making a deal with Duran for some hybrids to kill her off with while also trying to prepare for any potential backstab, or even having a few hybrid with actual personalities working on making the major players believe the prophecy is false. Or that it’s true if you want some to not just be BLARGH KILL ALL NOT HYBRID monsters with zero moral ambiguity, reasoning, or intelligence.

disposablewords
Sep 12, 2021


Or make the prophecy more ambiguous because it's a general outline of planned possible outcomes to the Purity of Form/Essence projects, and everyone now is just constantly reinterpreting it to fit their current situation.

Xarn
Jun 26, 2015
This thread needs an update soon. Partially to bring the discussion back to the game.

But mostly because the discussion afterwards is gonna be hilarious.

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



Xarn posted:

This thread needs an update soon. Partially to bring the discussion back to the game.

But mostly because the discussion afterwards is gonna be hilarious.

This elevator only goes one way.

Bisby do the warcrimes!

BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


Kaldir 3: Enemy Within

Video: Enemy Within


Time to put these colonists out of their misery.









Oh I do not like where this is going.



































And so, Lasarra's last moments are spent in agony.





Knowing that she doomed everyone onboard.



Follow my commands and hide in the shadows. You will consume and grow. Infest this ship and kill every last protoss onboard.



But that poo poo doesn't matter, because we have a Kerrigan-less mission to do!



The Larva starts off weak as poo poo, with no combat ability.

Also note the lack of minerals and gas on the top right. Instead, this mission revolves around biomass. Lasarra was kind enough to start me off with 20.





Time for the Larva's ability.



Parasitic Invasion lets it hop into neutral creeps, hiding it from view.





Once the path is clear I can pop it like a pinata, netting me some biomass and leaving some creep behind.

Also, why the hell is no one coming to check on Lasarra? At the very least you'd think they would send someone to see if she's alright.



Steam cloaks the Larva.



Like, they beam her in and creep is found not even two minutes later! Go on high alert! Don't just have a single Sentry go on patrol!





Nice Ursadon.



Mine now.



So the protoss think they have a few infested animals...

The Ursadon has a leap attack that stuns nearby enemies.



The Sentry and Zealot from before get called back to attack me.



But with 500 life and 45 damage a swing, they don't stand a chance.



Eating the Ursadon gets me 75 biomass.



So now I crawl through a pipe.



And find a safe place.





And this is what the biomass is for.







Say hello to Niadra.



Her thing is that her personal damage is terrible, but in exchange she can spawn 8 supply worth of Zerglings as much as she wants and has a regeneration aura to help out.

Her units don't cost money and have a fast morph time, so the Raptor choice is already paying off! You get literally nothing here if you took Swarmlings!



Parasitic Invasion works differently now, instantly killing animals on contact and hoovering up the biomass.



Niadra's so happy to be of use.



Also, note the new objectives. There are exactly 126 protoss remaining and every last one of them has to die.



Like, I know we're doing objectively horrible things here, but there's just something about how enthusiastic Niadra is about her work.





The vents are too small for Niadra, so the Zerglings have to charge in.









You found their warp drive! Destroy it and this vessel will never reach Shakuras!

Another vent.



The shield is down, but the warp drive is across a gap.



So Niadra shoots it a bit.



Okay, they can't reach Shakuras and drop the Golden Armada on my head now. Maybe we can withdraw and let them drift through space until someone decides to look into why the Kaldir expedition went silent? I'm sure we'll be done with Mengsk by then, and that's all Kerrigan really cares about right now.



No? Continue exterminating them all? Okay!

Also there's a timer before this section of the ship explodes.





Maybe if you, I don't know, sent more than a trickle of dudes out you could stop us!





poo poo explodes.





Wait, there is a disturbance in the chamber ahead.





And why wouldn't you do that first thing!? You know there's a broodmother onboard!



Anyways, the next bit has protoss in stasis that'll slowly wake up and attack.



Also I hit 150 biomass, which lets Niadra level up.





At level 2, Niadra gets a boost to health, an extra 7 supply, and the ability to make Roaches.



More Zerglings. More





The idea here is that the Zealots here will rush down the animals here to deny me biomass, but I can just... put my Zerglings right next to the stasis'd Zealots while Niadra makes a quick loop around the arena.



Also they take their sweet time waking up in general, and three Zealots don't really last long against 30 Adrenal Raptors.



Second verse, same as the first.



And I hit 150 biomass again, letting me hit level 3.





At max level, Niadra gets even more health, a cap of 30 supply, and can now spawn Hydralisks.



I go for a mix of Zerglings and Hydras, to get some ranged damage.





For whatever reason, infesting this Ursadon is the bonus objective and makes Kerrigan stronger.





The bridge is the final hurdle, and the protoss finally take things seriously.



And now, only when we're actively breaking down their door, do the few survivors decide to use the escape pods.

You only need one person to make it to Shakuras! Even if the notoriously fight-happy protoss felt they could take Niadra, why not send out one pod as a precaution to ensure the message gets out!

It really feels like the only reason Kerrigan succeeds here is because everyone else is a loving moron.



Each escape pod counts for 5 dead protoss.



At this point, some of the protoss get some unlisted lines. Here a Stalker says "Strike now, we must buy our brothers time!"



A Zealot chimes in with "I fear no enemy, for the Khala is my strength!"



A handy Sentry throws down some force fields to make me go the other way.



Which has an escape pod sitting there, thanks little buddy!

Also a Stalker says "We will not go quietly into the Void!"





And that's the last escape pod.





The mission is over now. If I wanted to I could fall back and just send an endless stream of Zerglings at the 7 survivors.









And done.





Everything Kerrigan's done until now was just really aggressive self-defense.



But now, after every last protoss is dead and no one will ever find out about what happened on Kaldir, Kerrigan just... ditches Niadra.



No reason is ever given for this, no Void Turbulence cutting off Kerrigan's signal or anything. She just got what she wanted from Niadra and left her to rot.







The problem is that Niadra's floating in space with standing orders to kill any protoss she sees! And guess what, exactly that happens in a comic set after the events of SC2! She kills one of the heroes from In Utter Darkness and everything!

What the gently caress, Kerrigan!?





Enemy Within - Complete the "Enemy Within" mission in the Heart of the Swarm campaign.

Biomass Effect - Collect 450 Biomass in the "Enemy Within" mission.

Failure to Launch - Don't let an Escape Pod reach less then 20 seconds in the "Enemy Within" mission on Normal difficulty.

Monster Smash - Kill 15 units with the Giant Ursadon in the "Enemy Within" mission on Hard difficulty.

Queen Rush - Complete the "Enemy Within" mission in less than 13 minutes on Normal difficulty.

BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Feb 6, 2024

TeeQueue
Oct 9, 2012

The time has come. Soon, the bell shall ring. A new world will come. Rise, my servants. Rise and serve me. I am death and life. Darkness and light.
Kerrigan clearly said "I'm sorry," so that means she's still a good person, probably. :colbert:

MiddleOne
Feb 17, 2011

Kerrigan is comically evil and sadistic in this mission.

Zulily Zoetrope
Jun 1, 2011

Muldoon
now all of that would be fine if the writing just hadn't been (and presumably will continue to be) waffling on whether Kerrigan is a decent person at heart or not

Or they could have kept up the "she actually values Zerg lives" angle and made her condemn the Kaldir Protoss for that reason, which would have been neat! Like not so much the combat drones, but she clearly made a choice to let the broodmothers and the not-adjutant have more agency than the cerebrates did, and it would make sense for her to have a motherly affection for them and be the only person who cares about their well-being.

Sanguinia
Jan 1, 2012

~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

Zulily Zoetrope posted:

Or they could have kept up the "she actually values Zerg lives" angle and made her condemn the Kaldir Protoss for that reason, which would have been neat! Like not so much the combat drones, but she clearly made a choice to let the broodmothers and the not-adjutant have more agency than the cerebrates did, and it would make sense for her to have a motherly affection for them and be the only person who cares about their well-being.

There's a sketch of a good idea in this mission. Kerrigan is outright nurturing to Niadra. She doesn't just give her orders, she guides her, encourages her. There's no venom or coldness in her voice. The most we get is urgency when it seems like the pods will escape. That makes the juxtaposition of Kerrigan simply turning off her psychic comms and abandoning this new Brood all the more shocking.

What if they'd written that Kerrigan's objective in this mission was ONLY to destroy the Warp Drive. Yes, she's making the decision to brutally murder her captive and a bunch of other innocent protoss that are fleeing from her, but its a surgical strike. She also clearly doesn't WANT to do this, to the point that for the first time in the game she hollowly, but sincerely, apologizes to her victim. But she feels like she HAS to do this to preserve her life/get her revenge.

Then imagine that Niadra goes rogue all because Kerrigan worded her first order so carelessly. She was told to destroy all the protoss, so simply crippling their ship isn't enough. This brings out the Kerrigan we saw back in that Umojan wasteland, the one who's done something horrific without thinking and is forced to see the consequences. She tries to seize Niadra's mind and force her to stand down, but the distance has grown too great for her to assume direct control. Kerrigan is more human than Zerg now: her powers to control the broods have limits. She tries to reason with Niadra, explain that she has accomplished her mission and nothing more is needed, but the newborn Broodmother isn't mature enough for that kind of nuance. Her first instruction was to destroy all Protoss, and anything deeper than that is too much for her to process. She must fulfill her purpose. She must make her creator happy, just like the one in Umoja who was happy to help her Queen save Raynor and equally happy to slaughter ever Dominion Soldier on the planet.

In the end, Kerrigan can do nothing but watch as this crippled ship is turned into a graveyard, and then she makes her final mistake, the same one she did with the Dominion soldiers: she runs away. She cuts off her link to this rampaging Broodmother and flees from what she's done rather than taking responsibility. Why not? The warp drive and escape pods are all destroyed. Surely they'll drift through the void at sublight speed for the next million years, never troubling another soul. Surely.

Obviously Kerrigan isn't going to turn away from her chosen course from this incident, but she could learn something from it. She could lament the fact that with the full powers of the Queen of Blades she could have stopped Niadra's rampage. She could realize that the Zerg love her, will do anything for her, and resolve to take that burden far more seriously. She could understand that the Zerg are much like children, capable of great cruelty and ignorant of the harm they cause, but also with an animal form of compassion and a moldable intellect. She could use this bloodbath to understand that she alone in all the universe has the power to make Zerg into more than killing machines, provided she takes care in how she guides them and doesn't use her power over them carelessly.

This is just one possible idea. I have like three of four more just off the top of my head. This game ticks me off.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

The ending of the mission is so terrible, Kerrigan just randomly abandons Niadra for no reason and she is NEVER even mentioned again in the games. Nothing. I assumed she was going to be an awkwardly inserted antagonist for the protoss campaign but the devs seemingly completely forgot she existed at all.

What does it matter if the ship makes it back and starts shouting that the queen of blades was at that planet x number of days ago anyway? Even if the entire golden suddenly-pulled-out-of-an-rear end fleet is just sitting around at 100% ready and waiting for such a moment by the time they actually get to the frozen planet Kerrigan can be on the other side of the sector.

Gun Jam
Apr 11, 2015

BisbyWorl posted:

Also, why the hell is no one coming to check on Lasarra? At the very least you'd think they would send someone to see if she's alright.
You know how in Alien, they should have listened to Ripley?
Here, they ain't even got a Ripley.

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

it's good that the protoss are all dead. fafo

Omobono
Feb 19, 2013

That's it! No more hiding in tomato crates! It's time to show that idiota Germany how a real nation fights!

For pasta~! CHARGE!

I genuinely forgot about Niadra and the ending there, and I replayed SC2 campaign when the LP started. I think it's telling how much I already had checked out of the stupidity that Heart of the EssenceSwarm plot is.

aniviron
Sep 11, 2014


Gun Jam posted:

You know how in Alien, they should have listened to Ripley?
Here, they ain't even got a Ripley.

It's a good point of comparison, the way this mission starts makes me think someone has to have said "aw gently caress it would be so cool to play as a facehugger but zerg and work your way up" and they were right but also it's a shame that they didn't lean into the fact that, you know, being an alien bioweapon should be wicked & terrifying.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Poil posted:

The ending of the mission is so terrible, Kerrigan just randomly abandons Niadra for no reason and she is NEVER even mentioned again in the games. Nothing. I assumed she was going to be an awkwardly inserted antagonist for the protoss campaign but the devs seemingly completely forgot she existed at all.

What does it matter if the ship makes it back and starts shouting that the queen of blades was at that planet x number of days ago anyway? Even if the entire golden suddenly-pulled-out-of-an-rear end fleet is just sitting around at 100% ready and waiting for such a moment by the time they actually get to the frozen planet Kerrigan can be on the other side of the sector.

It's so weird, too, because they could've just cut the mission and then not brought up Niadra again because like... yeah, it's a game abstraction, Niadra is somewhere at the back of the big space whale filling out zerg paperwork or putting hats on zerglings or whatever brood mothers do between genocides. So it feels like they wanted to say something but... they never really go anywhere with it? Hard to tell if they're just idiots or if they originally had some sort of greater idea that got slashed for time or during rewrites.

Also with warp gates between Kaldir and Shakuras, you'd expect that there'd be some regular exchange of check-ins or whatever, and the moment those stopped, at least some arm of the Golden Armada would show up to go: "Hey, are y'all okay out there? Need some more mittens to survive in the cold wasteland?" Which would make this whole thing pointless and oh whateverthefuck, we're overthinking this more than the sludge-writers at Blizzard ever did.

aniviron posted:

It's a good point of comparison, the way this mission starts makes me think someone has to have said "aw gently caress it would be so cool to play as a facehugger but zerg and work your way up" and they were right but also it's a shame that they didn't lean into the fact that, you know, being an alien bioweapon should be wicked & terrifying.

The Alien campaign for AvP2 owned and I would kill to play something like that but as Zerg to have even more toys to play with.

Noir89
Oct 9, 2012

I made a dumdum :(

PurpleXVI posted:

putting hats on zerglings

You know ever since I was a kid I always wondered wtf zerg broods/hives are doing in peace time and for me this is now the canon answer.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Noir89 posted:

You know ever since I was a kid I always wondered wtf zerg broods/hives are doing in peace time and for me this is now the canon answer.
Mental image of Abathur knitting.

Jack-Off Lantern
Mar 2, 2012

Can I just chime in that the tiny subtitles of this game are just awful?

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?
Lots could be said about how this mission would jive a lot better if the game committed to Kerrigan being just plain mustache-twirling evil, but it's probably even more dissonant if you do Char first.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

Like with a lot of Starcraft 2, there's just enough seeds of potential fun stories for the bad writing to be frustrating. There's a lot that this mission could do to portray a conflicted Kerrigan torn between a desire to protect herself with minimal casualties and the impulse to dominate people who oppose her. Or a Kerrigan who has flung herself off the deep end and will callously destroy anything in her way, abusing any resources to do so. Or a sympathetic Kerrigan working at cross-purposes to a Swarm that listens to her but she can't fully control. And the mission doesn't do any of these things, doing very little to give Kerrigan a conclusive characterisation while also having a bit too much writing for it to be purely functional mission direction.

I do find something a little satisfying about having Niadra left drifting through space dedicated to hunting down Protoss for reasons she neither understands nor ever thinks to question, whether that's because Kerrigan abandoned her or just lost her. It sells the idea that no matter where the story of Kerrigan ends up going, there's always going to be a bit more conflict floating around, and the Starcraft will continue. I don't know, it just pleases me when the story leaves open room for whatever configuration of skirmish matches to actually be happening somewhere. And while we haven't seen much of it yet, this campaign is going to have a running thing of setting up the Swarm to exist beyond and outside of Kerrigan. A less monolithic Swarm that could survive without her. But we'll cross that bridge when we burn it I suppose.


GunnerJ posted:

Lots could be said about how this mission would jive a lot better if the game committed to Kerrigan being just plain mustache-twirling evil, but it's probably even more dissonant if you do Char first.

It would be a fun bit of potential characterisation if Kerrigan was just genuinely struggling to perceive Protoss as real people, compared to Terrans or even Zerg. She'd never met them in any context other than them being enemies or unwitting patsies, and her only viewpoint of them was through being the Queen Of Blades. You could do something with that. But the closest we come to that is the whole "well how many zerg have you killed?" bit.

Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Jan 27, 2024

RevolverDivider
Nov 12, 2016

This mission rules to actually play even if the writing is hilariously bad

BlazetheInferno
Jun 6, 2015

Sanguinia posted:

Kerrigan is more human than Zerg now: her powers to control the broods have limits.

I won't say any more, but there are issues with taking this particular approach that we can't get into right now.

But yeah, all this really just boils down to, "It's not about how far away she can get by the time they find out, Kerrigan doesn't want the Golden Armada learning about her AT ALL. The chances of them showing up at the worst possible time to interrupt her revenge on Mengsk are small, but unacceptable nonetheless."

As for abandoning Niadra... Kerrigan's not thinking ahead about future relations. As far as she's concerned, the Protoss will always be her enemies. There's no conceivable reason for that to ever change, given her history. She has no other tasks for Niadra. This one ship is what she was made for. Niadra's job is done. Let her do her own thing or something, I guess. If she ends up fighting more Protoss... well, that's the Zerg and the Protoss for you.

Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


god kerrigan sucks so fuckin bad lmao

the worst part is that it's not even in a way that's smart

gohuskies
Oct 23, 2010

I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.
That Niadra is never seen again in the game and the standing "kill all Protoss" order doesn't backfire is an incredible dropping of the ball on a Chekov's Gun.

RevolverDivider posted:

This mission rules to actually play even if the writing is hilariously bad

Yeah it's the most interesting and creative dungeon mission in the franchise gameplay-wise IMO.

disposablewords
Sep 12, 2021


Look, we got our hydralisks out of this world and therefore never need to even think about anything about it ever again, including any characters introduced.

BlazetheInferno
Jun 6, 2015

disposablewords posted:

Look, we got our hydralisks out of this world and therefore never need to even think about anything about it ever again, including any characters introduced.

SPIKE-SHOOTIN' WORMY BOIS GET

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




From what I vaguely remember reading, Lasarra was (supposedly) originally planned to be a setpiece character on the bridge for the rest of the campaign who would have been the only person regularly calling Kerrigan out on her BS to her face.

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

gohuskies posted:

That Niadra is never seen again in the game and the standing "kill all Protoss" order doesn't backfire is an incredible dropping of the ball on a Chekov's Gun.

Yeah it's the most interesting and creative dungeon mission in the franchise gameplay-wise IMO.

I think part of why it hits so well is that it doesn't overstay its welcome. It's a one off change of pace, and the stealth section at the start gives it variety within the level while being simple and short enough that it's basically just mood setting.

And you just feel powerful in a good way every time you get bigger and get new dudes and more dudes.

aniviron
Sep 11, 2014


BlazetheInferno posted:

As for abandoning Niadra... Kerrigan's not thinking ahead about future relations. As far as she's concerned, the Protoss will always be her enemies. There's no conceivable reason for that to ever change, given her history. She has no other tasks for Niadra. This one ship is what she was made for. Niadra's job is done. Let her do her own thing or something, I guess. If she ends up fighting more Protoss... well, that's the Zerg and the Protoss for you.

Perhaps Kerrigan is so used to interacting exclusively with the Zerg who not only don't but can't question her, that it has left her socially stunted. It's clearly not the angle the writers are going for, they're trying to portray her in a sympathetic light when talking to other humans, but it's another one of those paths not taken. I imagine that spending the better part of a decade talking to the ultimate sycophants who not only do everything you tell them but are incapable of not loving your and trying to carry out your will in your absence would gently caress a person up pretty well.

Hwurmp
May 20, 2005

aniviron posted:

Perhaps Kerrigan is so used to interacting exclusively with the Zerg who not only don't but can't question her, that it has left her socially stunted.

Aspzerger's

Omobono
Feb 19, 2013

That's it! No more hiding in tomato crates! It's time to show that idiota Germany how a real nation fights!

For pasta~! CHARGE!

RevolverDivider posted:

This mission rules to actually play even if the writing is hilariously bad

SC2.txt

gohuskies posted:

That Niadra is never seen again in the game and the standing "kill all Protoss" order doesn't backfire is an incredible dropping of the ball on a Chekov's Gun.

SC2.txt

Regalingualius posted:

From what I vaguely remember reading, Lasarra was (supposedly) originally planned to be a setpiece character on the bridge for the rest of the campaign who would have been the only person regularly calling Kerrigan out on her BS to her face.

SC2.txt? Blizzard_writers.txt maybe?


Anyways, after Wings I think people can tell when any kind of excitement for the story completely died, got cremated and the ashes dispersed.
And guess what? There's poo poo I think is even dumber up ahead

Guy Fawkes
Aug 1, 2014

Lvl 62, +5 meadow defense

MiddleOne posted:

Kerrigan is comically evil and sadistic in this mission.

While being in absolute denial and labelling her actions as "Necessary Evil"; actions that really can be considered her "Moral Event Horizon".

Seriously, what the... were the writers trying to accomplish, here?

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Qwertycoatl
Dec 31, 2008

Really they should have just leaned into cartoonishly evil, people don't play the zerg campaign in starcraft because they want sympathetic characters who are good at heart

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