The fact this man can speedrun the entirety of WoL in less time than it takes him to "briefly" summarize it is hilarious to me. Please, never change Grant, you glorious goof.
Kerrigan's inclusion in All In is the thing that makes it a masterpiece. From a narrative perspective including her as a final boss just fits perfectly. But from a gameplay perspective, I think she fits a very important role. Hold out missions are the hardest type of mission to balance in RTS. If you've ever mastered Last Stand in LOTV, you know that once you get the right defense up, the mission practically plays itself. But if you ramp up the attacks too much, then it can become unfair how easily the attacks overwhelm the player. Kerrigan's role in all in is to be a disruptor. It takes a bit, but once you get the defense set up and the economy going, the attack waves on all in aren't too tough to deal with. Kerrigan's job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable. She comes to throws a wrench in your plan. She puts a crack in your defenses and give the attack wave an opening. Forcing you to scramble to plug the hole. It's genius. As this occasional attacker, she ensures that passive defense isn't an option while not over tuning the main attack waves.
...except for the fact that her undisclosed bullshit mechanics all perfectly align to be hardcountered by mass marines. The basic, spammable, already stupidly overpowered unit which you're probably only shying away from because they've steamrolled every other challenge at this point (alongside tanks, and not counting Maw's ripfields ofc).
@@Photoloss Pretty sure her true hardcounter are Ghosts lol. Also mass marines? Does your Kerrigan not have Razor Swarm? On brutal it kills like 10-20 marines in one shot if I remember right, and sure I've seen techniques where you bait her out and micro hard, but why? Why even bother? I just get mass ghosts and sniper her till she's dead, far easier to do and more fun too. Or get mass BC. Just make sure you have a sacrificial lamb for the Implode and the BC mass Yamato will obliterate her in seconds.
@@Photoloss except for the fact that on all in marine-based defense effective against 4 whole units (Kerri included)and without 50 SCVs repairing wall will crumble before Kerri show up. And razor swarm
@@stankobarabata2406 Marines are dirt cheap and minerals aren't much of a constraint in All In to begin with. Basically just drop a hercules full of them in front of your bunker line, GO NOVA, and, if you're fancy, build some depots or turrets on the cliff to try and bait the first Razor Swarm. Or if you have drop pods just build like 4+ reactor rax and rally on top of her lol. Marines are easy, efficient, and don't constrain your options for tackling the rest of the mission nearly as much as investing a huge pile of gas into ghosts or BCs. But if you _happen to have_ ghosts or BCs, because you like them or perhaps because you're playing vs air without HMEs for some reason, then sure just using those probably is easier than making extra marines just to deal with Kerrigan.
@@Photoloss As I said, it's too much work. Building depos then microing marines sounds like a hassle. Also like you don't really use Gas that much in all in. You're literally building static defense for half of the mission which only costs minerals. I'd rather go for a gas heavy unit to offload the mineral strain on repairing bunkers/planetaries/turrets. Hence why I said Ghost/BC is practically the BiS choice for this misson. Also BC works wonders on ground All in as well. They're one of the best units next to the Banshee to send out to clear the Nyduses as they're well protected with their ability and have the yamato for when you need to be quick. And they're good vs Kerrigan overall. Same with a ton of Ghosts except you can't snipe the Nyduses I think. I tried using HME but honestly I prefer the disruptor myself, but the HME is really better for air. Even then for Air I just call in some Hel's angels and easily steamroll most broodlords without much issue.
Something else about the secret mission, that Grant didn't mention is another amazing fact linking to the original Starcraft. Mengsk is studying, experimenting, cloning and building weapons using alien lifeforms, the exact thing he accused the confederacy of in the original, that he used to gather allies, and turn people against the confederacy, and yet here he is, knowingly continuing their work on xenomorphic life to turn it into ultimate weapons to crush all resistance and conquer new planets. Which is fully in character for him, as Grant mentioned constantly throughout the video, he cares about power, not the risks, but it's still an amazing throwback to the very first installation mission, and also the exact brutalness from Mengsk that lead to the Horner mission chain.
I mean Mengsk was also turned into a stereotypical Tyrant trope. Just a power hungry madman. Old Mengsk was basically Tywin levels of villain. Smart, always with a scheme or a plan, and using overwhelming force where needed. An amazing antagonist. Current Mengsk is basically a whole other person. Same as Raynor almost, except Raynor kept his old personality, and instead his motivations got uprooted and turned into a typical goody-two shoes story.
Not only that, he came to power literally by using aliens as bioweapons. Finally taking him down in HotS was so gratifying. Funny as a lot of people, for some reason, thought Mensk wouldn't be the final mission in the Zerg campaign.
I just replayed and found out goofing around that on Sudden Strike, Nova Covert Op's second mission, if you scanner sweep behind the zerg base, there's a bunch of cloaked ghosts and a Psi Emitter, hinting at the overarching plot of the ghosts (like Nova) causing zerg attacks. You can never see this angle unless you waste a scan sweep (was playing an Archepelago run, so was a bit OP at the time and scanning at random). Not terribly related, but just wanted to chorus some fun notes about environmental storytelling, that 10 years down the line, I'm still finding out about things in the games.
One thing that always stuck out to me was how despite the Raiders' forces still being capable of deploying hundreds of mechs and small starship fleets, they managed to retain that sense of a ragtag, small-ish (at least in the grand scheme of things) group of rebels doing hit-and-run operations on much larger forces from the Swarm, Tal'Darim to the Dominion. It's especially apparent compared to HotS and LotV, which has you control an entire armada of Zerg/Protoss, and further reinforced by WoL's upgrades being restricted by the Raiders only having so many Credits to go around, while the sequels auto-unlock alternative options as you progress their campaigns, with the restriction being that you can only choose one upgrade for a single unit.
The HotS system doesn't really make sense though, both Evolution options already exist so Abathur could just archive both of them but still only allow 1 per mission because the DNA changes are mutually exclusive.
"We all know that Tosh is the better waifu" That is one thing I never expected to hear, but in hindsight absolutely do agree. Shame we never got Coop Tosh or Tosh's Terrazine Quest campaign...
@@simplysmiley4670 exploding military facilities with entire civilian city blocks around not a bro move tho (and this is from reportage from Kate Lockwell, not Donni, so its not propaganda) also in real history, every time revolutionaries break open gates of the prisons, its civilians who immediately suffer the most (because most criminals don't want to die to get revenge on the government, but return to their criminal ways against fellow citizens)
Isn't there a fan Co-op Tosh Commander in Nexus Coop? From videos I have seen, it's VERY dope! You should defenetly try it, because our Tosh-waifu deserves better than this! Also, could you please scour the internet for custom Tosh factions beyond Nexus Coop? Some of us, primeraly me, want to see how many of and how different each Tosh-factions are!... ...Hmmm, Tosh and Waifu combined together... *Oh no... It's stuck in my head now!...* *...FEM-TOSH IS STUCK IN MY MIND NOW, ALONGSIDE THE CONCEPT OF REGULAR TOSH HAVING A SECRET SISTER TWIN, WHICH IS BASICLY AN "OC" OF HIM WITH DIFFERENT SPINS ON HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND TRAITS! I CAN'T UNTHINK IT NOW!...* A N D I D O N ' T W A N T T O , atleast with Tosh's Twin-sister concept. Just need to dive enough into lore of Tosh for confirmations and inspirations sometime later.
"A brief retrospective" that's longer than many of the game's speedruns! Wings of Liberty is a masterpiece of blending storytelling with gameplay. I seriously hope that Stormgate or ZeroSpace will be able to deliver on the promise of giving us more of what made Wings of Liberty so good.
In that choice with what do with the colonists, I expected I would actually have to do something like the culling. Nothing in the pre-mission dialogue is about how you will just have to defend colonists from the Zerg. So I never sided with Selendis until a few years ago, never even knew what the mission was actually about. They make it seem like you have to kill the colonists, which is a choice I would never make. ... And then when you choose Safe Haven there isn't any sign of infestation is sight!
Basically the story changes depending on what you pick, so that you can't make the "wrong" choice If you side with Hanson the infestation is in the early stages and a cure is possible, if you go with Selendis the colony is already gone Same with Nova vs Tosh, if you go with Nova then Tosh is a lunatic and Spectres are a ticking time bomb, but if you side with Tosh then Nova was lying and they're fine
@creativename1673 yeah but terrazin IS making people (and protoss, but especially people as protoss are more mentally durable) Amon-possessed lunatics because it strengthens your connection with the Void, realm where evil god sits so this have to mean that Nova choice canon but then you have Spectres in LotV epilogue and they not crazy despite being terrazin-high and physically in the Void already wtf i guess Tosh and his men had anime training montage offscreen to make themself more Amon-proof than freaking Protoss with hundreds of years of mental discipline
@creativename1673 I have to disagree with you on the nova vs tosh one. It doesn't change the story at all based on your pick, but rather neither side is telling you the full story. If you side with tosh, you find that they're more dangerous than he let on to, but less do than nova implies
@creativename1673 The Tosh choice doesn't need to warp reality. If Dr. Hanson is still around after siding with Tosh she'll say that spectres are basically just people, not more unstable (keep in mind Amon is not revived yet so any future possession is well beyond this scope), but also still capable of regular cruelty and insanity just like the general population. And if you side with Nova YOU are the one betraying Tosh, so OF COURSE he goes off the rails. The fact his voodoo doll fails in such a ridiculous manner suggests he hadn't exactly planned and prepared it in advance, and his facility existing (or getting destroyed by Nova without your help) if you side with him does not cause any lore issues either. At the same time NCO demonstrates that even without Amon the Terrazine can undo ghost mind wipes, and we know both the training and the work itself is godawful. Add a certainly inhumane experimental spectre program on top of that and it's no wonder the original spectres went crazy, anyone would if you tortured them enough and gave them the means to lash out.
My headcanon for Safe Heaven is that Hanson did find a cure for the infestation virus, but just specifically for the strain that infected Haven, and since the virus mutates incredibly quickly (which she comments on after the mission on Meinhoff) the cure is completely useless against the rest of the infestations around the sector. Still incredibly convoluted, sloppy storytelling on blizzard's side, but this is at least a thread of logic that somewhat explains what happens
Also Haven declares itself independent and the Dominion probably doesn't even officially _know_ about them, let alone any infestation research there, so really unless you for some bizarre reason believed Dr. Hanson could create an "anti-zerg grey goo" superweapon all of it will only really come into play during or after LotV. With Valerian at the helm, a time of relative peace to invest in large-scale biomedical industry and reclaiming lost planets from the zerg, and through that the resources and incentive to keep developing the cure to remain effective against different strains and future adaptations. Mind you the protoss _already had_ a cure, which to their knowledge worked perfectly. And not only should Selendis as one of their top leaders know about it, JIM WAS THERE TOO! Admittedly "our facility got destroyed, here's what we have left of our nanobot recipe, see if you and stetboi can make anything useful from it" wouldn't really make for a good mission.
I really love how for Bel'shir, you not only get an achievement for defeating the protoss base, but it is also an alternative win condition. It is a shame that only three missions across all of SC2 have alternative win conditions, and that includes Welcome to the Jungle. The Dig has one and Purification from Legacy of the Void. The latter though is kinda silly as by the time you might get around to destroying the last zerg base, you might as well just finish off the last set of locks. And depending on which base that is, you really have to go out of your way not to win the intended way.
And we finally get lore for Grant's almost irrational hate for doctor Hanson. It's her being snappy a couple of times. I think she's fine. She brings in a lot of neat lore comments while having this aura of a scientist/leader of colonist who has some serious stuff hidden in her past. Whatever it is, she's way overqualified for her job, and she shows it repeatedly. She's like a look into an alternate path Jim Rayron could've taken, if after all the crazy stuff from before he decided to retire and live peacefully. That wouldnt' be the correct choice imo since the Sector still needs Jim Raynor, but when you get older you can see the allure in that, and not just because she pecks him on the cheek if you help her.that one line of dialogue during her on-boarding. I think she's fine. She brings in a lot of neat lore comments while having this aura of a scientist/leader of colonist who has some serious stuff hidden in her past. Whatever it is, she's way over
yeah but her rapidly developing cure for the zerg virus that promptly vanishes from the plot (again, same thing was already happened when Artanis healed Stukov but then he again appeared infested and cure poofed from the story) is incredibly silly
I always imagined Grant being a bloodthirsty refugee-killing psychopath for his anti-Hanson stance. I always side with Dr. Hanson mostly because I figured not even Tassadar would give up on those civilians so easily, and that Selendis is falling into the habits of the old, dogmatic attitudes of Aldaris. Sure, the refugee missions are indeed a bit of a slog, but I figured Raynor wouldn't abandon those in need. He's already suffered enough with an Infested Kerrigan. I'm probably of the mindset in that we've seen enough dark, gritty stuff in SC1, and needed some optimism in the story. So I didn't mind the overall tone shift in Starcraft II's plot.
For me it just feels like a manufactured "happy ending" siding with her. It's not the cure existing I have a problem with but rather how the infestation just vanishes..??? I would've preferred it where the cure can save uninfected citizens but any already affected need to be put down. Similar to how the mission plays when siding with Selendis. It wasn't necessarily a bad choice, just the boring one, it felt rushed and too.. "i snap my fingers and make the problem vanish" style. If that makes sense.
@@AtomicRobloxProductions When I first played the mission I had assumed the infestation was elsewhere, instead of being limited to five people in a cage, whereas siding with Selendis put us in the infestation zone. Definitely feel like the idea of branched paths was a mistake, seeing as how in two instances it involved Raynor betraying his allies.
There are no coincidences, only signs. ;-) Just recently I finished a complete playthrough of Wings of Liberty. I played all the missions, listened to all the dialogues and watched all the cutscenes. I do that every few years, but only with WoL. Your video came just in time, thank you! There's one thing that you didn't mention and I believe it's worth mentioning; it's another of the many winks and nods the developers had made towards the old players. The first three missions of WoL take place on Mar Sara, the third one is an evacuation mission. The first three missions of Starcraft 1 also took place on Mar Sara and the third one wass also an evacuation mission. This shows that Blizzard could use nostalgia as their tool, but it wasn't their only tool, not even the main one. RIP Incontrol and Totalbiscuit. The news of their deaths had been double shocking. They were both my age and both passed away before reaching forty.
I know many people love Starcraft 1 to death, and I like that game a lot as well. However, many of the missions on each campaign is just Kill the enemy bases, rinse and repeat. So it can get not just repetitive but tiring when playing continuously as you gotta restart all your economy and base progress each mission. Wings of Liberty has some really good and varied mission objectives which helps mitigate that problem and I find myself easily playing it continuously!
It's somewhat better in brood war compared to the base game. Especially with the terran missions like stealing battle cruisers or enduring nukes or whatnot. But yeah, I agree, mission variety was way better in starcraft 2. But I do appreciate blizzard increasing video game quality from warcraft 1 to legacy of the void.
For the computer science nerds: To simulate this, I created a Mission class that holds all of the data for each mission. The class has one method: isPlayable, which does as it says on the tin (by checking if it has already been played, the split choice wasn't done, prereq unlocked, mission count, etc.). I then had a great time defining every mission and its requirements, though I skipped all of the split missions. Because they are all dead ends, those don't have to be simulated, and we can multiply the output by 8 (2^3 where 3 are the 3 split missions: Haven, Ghosts/Spectres, and Char). With all the data defined, it was relatively straightforward to implement a Depth First Search to traverse the tree that was made. Breadth First Search ran into memory issues, so DFS was required. For checking, I printed out every 100,000th run (and when run on the command line, threw it into a text file), and all of our spot checks were reasonable. Printing out every combination would have taken ~532 GB of hard drive space which I opted not to do. If you want to check the code: pastebin.com/FMjsfWx0
The funny thing is, Welcome to the Jungle isn't a mission I generally find too tricky and go to asap for the Goliath. Always amused me that it's considered one of the harder ones. edit: the hybrid upgrade system is something I was thinking of for a mod I'm working on. I was also thinking of the possibility of allowing a much cheaper 1-mission version if you don't want it perma, or allowing you to research upgrades in missions and carry a limited number over to the next mission.
The Goliath Upgrades are some of my favorites, so speedrunning towards getting Goliaths as early as possible is my general strategy for campaign too. Funny enough I feel like WttJ got harder after I heard people consider it a hard mission, like a psychological effect.
For the Haven mission design, imo it will be much better if Raynor and the Daelamm team up to deal with both the infestation and the zerg forces. We can have a choice between purging the infested colonies while the protoss is dealing with the zerg reinforcement; or we can obliterate the zerg bases while the Daelamm focus on the infested stuffs. It feels so awkward to chase our protoss friend away when they just want to clear the infected at their home doorstep.
Starcraft 2 incredible in many ways, single aspect that i was felt lacking is that i want BIGGER fucking maps, with more difficult terrain so reapers and transport ships (medevacs and hercules) can shine more, and more complex in-game choices can be made, like choosing who to help by attacking one of two bases instead of picking one of two options out of the mission so, like Warcraft 3 a bit (it had simpler effects and much smaller unit count, i know, but anyway)
The issue with your proposal is that having a major zerg presence on Haven, including the starting point of vanilla Haven's Fall for that matter, just doesn't make sense in the slightest. Either we catch the protoss right as they're instating a quarantine and it's our job to nip the infestation in the bud, or the planet should be glassed already because they're clearly willing to go that far. And Jim fighting off the protoss while there are active full-fledged hives doesn't make any sense either, at best it'd be a reversed merge of Evacuation and Smash&Grab where you try to get out the non-infested colonists while the protoss and zerg try to destroy each other, but then we'd be back to square one on the narrative side and the whole mission chain would feel meaningless/would need a new finale. Mandatory Haven's Fall is the grim, gritty writing a decent portion of SC1 subscribed to. Mandatory Safe Haven is the heroic Jim SC2 goes for. The choice as present in vanilla doesn't work at all without warping off-screen reality.
Grant. I just want to thank you again for reigniting my love for Starcraft. Between videos like these and showcasing all the insanely talented modders and their amazing campaigns and helping to make the CCM to make playing them so easy. Can never thank you enough for all the many many hours ive put into the game since finding your channel 😁
29:19 the lava mechanic is also used in a versus map called Burning Tide, a 3v3 layout map where the goal is for one side to reach a mineral quota first the coop map Vermillion's Problem did not start with enemies immune to lava, which is the reason why even today enemy waves race to high ground when lava is about to rise, i believe the immunity was added when they introduced mutators
watching this i finally realize why i enjoy these kinds of videos personally. its cause it feels like your listening to a friend that so lovingly hyperfixated on something they love that you can just let them talk and enjoy the thing they enjoy
I really love how you talk about something but show very subtly some other mechanics that you have described before. Talking about mission design and showing you getting an achievement. Talking about split choices of missions while showing again the options for lab research and armory. I like it how it helps highlight those things again without needed to repeat yourself. And overall brilliant video Grant, absolutely worth the wait
I remember playing this campaign and really thinking to myself: Goddamn, they really set the bar for campaign rts games A shame that almost no other developer put so much time/effort and detail in their rts campaigns and focus more on the multiplayer aspect
That's 100% a legit win. Not being "acclimated" to a balance change is just an excuse. That's part of a professional player's job. If some rando could incorporate a balance change faster than a pro could and that rando won because of that strategy then it's 100% a legit win.
Great video! This particular retrospective brought back some memories for me because Wings of Liberty was the first RTS I played when I was a kid. I remember only beating half the missions and getting my dad to play the rest. I'm still pretty bad at RTS, so I'm glad people like you who have such a deep understanding of the game are able and willing to share your particular appreciation of the game with casual players like me!
god what an awesome and lovely video. I grew up on RTS games, Command and Conquer: Tiberium war, Supreme Commander 2, Starcraft 2, hell even one of the Age of Empire games but it's so long ago I don't remember which one (there were cheatcodes for lasergun spacemen and sports cars with bazookas. People don't make those kinds of cheatcodes anymore) It was really nice getting a thorough look through not only the Wings of Liberty campaign from a mechanical/design perspective, a narrative perspective but also a cultural/historical perspective. The various anecdotes about memorable matches, major and minor, of competitive culture then and now, brought up loads of memories of my first time playing SC2. It got me to think about the characters, Finlay in particular, way more than I had before and I think he's a really interesting take on a story of redemption. I think the open letter to Microsoft regarding maps and balance is absolutely spot-on. I never played much competitive SC2, by that I mean I barely touched the multiplayer and skirmish modes *at all*, because they just didn't have any of the fun and cool units. When I looked at SC2 (or any RTS) I saw them as toy boxes, the campaign being a big bountiful chest of cool stuff, with all kinds of bespoke playmats and story to knit it all together, meanwhile PvP was a small cramped thing with like half the toys, the playmats make no sense and there's no rhyme or reason for any of it, and there isn't even enough dangling threads to make a half-decent headcanon out of it. If the Skirmish/PvP mode had all the same units, weirder maps with unique gimmicks and just the barest hint of context given to what was happening (hell I'd even take "training simulation for adjutant") I'd be 100x more onboard with it. Would it be less suited for top-ranked, ultra-serious, mega-prize-pool competitive play? Maybe. Would it be more fun to watch? Probably, I think. Would it be more fun to play? absolutely. One last thing: Thank you Grant, for creating an awesome community, for fostering an incredible modding scene, and for making amazing content, and again, thank you for making this video.
Starcraft as a franchise has, without a doubt, shaped my taste in gaming. 2010 with release of WoL took a special place in my heart and I am always glad to look back on my favourite game, even tho so much time has passed. Thank you Grant and Merry Christmas. Really liked your ending interpretation. Countless runs and I've never even thought about it like that.
I am only 1/3 through the video but I want to thank you for refreshing my experience playing this campaign for the first time; it was great because no hand holding and you die exactly as you will expect for not learning; the difficulty was there exactly as I wanted when I played on brutal, having to reload saves on mistakes. Crazy to think that Starcraft was a mostly a monocore/dualcore game for all the things that happens in it.
Man, playing through this video feels so much like memory lane. Watching you play through all those missions just gave me a nostalgia trip, remembering how much I got bodied on those missions the first time I played Brutal. How I had to play smart and fast during the Terrazine Mission. Or the fact that I got so much more enjoyment in the Side with the Protoss mission... just... so many things were all hit and I'm all for it. Also seeing some of the missions like in Gates of Hell. I didn't even realize I could do that! There were so much things here I saw that I didn't know I missed. This is really making me want to replay SC2... and this video just reminded me why I loved the game and had so much fun replaying the campaign so many times. Sidenote: All-In Sky version is still easier on Brutal for me. No way am I suffering Ultralisks and Nydus Worms when I can trivialize this with Hive Mind Emulator Brood Lords.
The Lost Viking achievements were no problem for me in particular because I am an arcade and shmup veteran player, have been one for decades. I actualy got more then 1.5 million points (3 times what you would need for the achievements) on the mini-game just for kicks, however I do understand your points and the fact that most players of SC2 are not arcade shmup fans so moving those achievements to the Feats of Strenght category does make logical sense. I remember helping 2 friends of mine get that 500k points because they were so frustrated with it. Ah, good times :)
There's also the fact that mashing the fire button instead of holding it down makes you *SIGNIFICANTLY* more effective, and doing so without a macro is a miserable chore to maintain for 45+ minutes or however long it takes a newbie to rack up enough points. It just has a lot of individually insignificant snags for new or RTS-focused players.
I am always having a blast watching your Long retrospektiv Videos and this was no exception. I hope Heart of the warm an the Portos campaign will geht there own Videos in the Future and i cant wait for them to Release :)
honestly, after you mentioned how the first two missions are so similar, i also realized that the maps are also incredibly similar, the path you take is much the same, just that your starting position is moved more to the right to make space for the bonus objective base in the bottom left
The fact that wings make overmind make his plan true not fail and probady telling us it may not use full power to fight befor died, is so funny like he died yet he literaly plan it
It's interesting how The Overmind, a biological creature through and through that gets called "abomination" and "monstrosity" on numerous occassions...is so robotic in its nature. How non-animal it and the Zerg it leads are - there is no self-preservation in sight, only objectives to be met, simple, straightforward objectives Even cellular organisms, even our cells in bodies aren't as devoid of life as the Zerg and especially the Overmind, seeing how it seemingly plans to die and possibly lead the Zerg (closest relative) to ruin to achieve its grand plan At least in SC2, in SC1 The Overmind was obiously not "it" but a creature capable of thought and emotion, seeing how it always was gloating about "the glory that is your birthright" and all that schnozz
@@The-jy3yq As per SC2 canon the Overmind basically WAS a flesh robot programmed by Amon. And it basically made the "father's choice" - sacrificing itself in a hopeless situation so its children could be free. At least ignoring how all of that was just a story told by Ouros, who knows how much of it is true, how much was twisted to manipulate Zeratul and how much was outright fabrication. And yes the SC1 Overmind had very different vibes, essentially falling to its own hubris much the same way the protoss did _against_ it previously.
i remember when i was a kid the reason i always sided with the protoss on Haven wasn't the fact that it made more sense than siding with Hanson, but because as a kid i found fighting the protoss there impossible, sure i can win against them nowadays, but i just prefer purging the infested
for the second mission i feel like they could have also added a little tip-bit on lifting and landing buildings, Like jim saying "oh look here, there is a nice choke point over [pans camera] maybe we can setup a blockade or a choke."
What's cool to see about Zeratul's entrance here... is how it inspired a recreation of that SC1 flair Grant showed as an example in Mass Recall. *The torches going out pair by pair is just a beatifull nod to Zeratul's first appearance in WoL!*
This is a great narrative story and video. I love how you mixed in the personal remembrances of the good times. We would love to go back and experience it all over again, but the time has passed. I think this is one of the issues with the difficulties of the new batch of RTS games in development now. We can't just get the times back because we get a new RTS game to try out.
Me silently listening to the video, having finished Starcraft II multiple times. Matt during Outbreak: You can build a Missile Turret during the day to detect the Infester and kill it. Me: *facepalming myself out of reflex for never thinking about that*
Grant when playing Zero Hour : **yawn* Grant when talking about Zero Hour : *"Epic and intense"* At least Grant still has the same opinion as us when it comes to Dr. Hanson xD
@@The-jy3yq The banelings do in fact unburrow, and there's a few in Evacuation as well. Functionally they might as well be cloaked attackers though because you sure aren't reacting in time for the difference to be meaningful. I don't recall any enemy spider mines though. Also Orlan has a cloaked ghost to drop his nuke. And IIRC Welcome to the Jungle has observers too, but nobody cares.
I love this videos so much, I haven't watch it yet, but the WC3 was so good I just now this will also be a masterpiece, SC2 was a videogame my dad bought to me on a birthday when I was 10, it ment so much to me, and it still does, it made me the RTS fan I'm today
Loved WarCraft 3 retrospective and looking forward to watching this, since I also know and love a lot about these games and could easily talk about them for hours without even trying, so Grant feels like a kindred spirit And Wings of Liberty is super special for me. In 2010 I was in a bad accident that left me crippled for life and bedridden for over a year. And while everything sucked, my friend came back from work-and-travel program to the US and brought with him a shiny big box for Wings of Liberty, which he gave to me. Our hospitals didn't have Internet at the time, but I spent countless hours playing WoL campaign on my crappy laptop. For a little while this game was one of the very few good things in my life, a break from the gloom and literal daily pain. Not like "it was the only thing that kept me going" or whatever, but it sure helped. 2010 was the worst year of my life, but Wings of Liberty was good
Did you see that concave on top of the ramp the Outlaws the middle base had? Literally just showing the player a damn near immortal defensive setup, and you didn't even mention it. Very clever design.
Hey Grant, thanks for explaining what you liked and didn't like about Hanson and the colonist story line! I've been following you for years but always found you memeing about her almost obnoxious (since I actually liked her and found other characters way more of a travesty), but your thorough explanation was very nice.
Thank you Grant! Thank you. I love these videos and after consuming them once, they help me sleep. Only on like the 5th mission right now but the second mission with gold minerals should be: In utter darkness, no?
I had wondered why you had such hostility towards the doctor in your videos and streams. As a twelve year old kid who started the franchise (and RTS in general) with Wings of Liberty, I saw the option to save the colonists and went "Yeah, that's what good guys do!" and just... never gave the other option a second thought. Since playing Heart of the Swarm and learning more about the Zerg and the lore, it does make a much better story to help the protoss here, and it's wild to me that I had never considered the idea of just... curing a virus older than humanity itself in a few hours (and NOBODY MENTIONS IT AGAIN!) to be absolutely fucking ridiculous
It was years since I saw the ending cinematic, and I really like your interpretation. "Damn shame" says Tychus, when I first played it I thought he was still thinking he'll kill Kerrigan, "A shame to have done all this only to kill her" but I suppose now the shame is that he understand Jimmy, he got to care for him, and even for the cause, only to have it all take away.
The 'In Utter Lameness' part really hit home for me. Sure there were time when all you saw was mass Swarm Host or Oracles were completley opressive. But the sanitized competitive games are not memorable at all. What is stuck in my head are the goofy, jank and chaotic games. Husky's Imba League or the late Total Biscuits invitationals with unique maps and actual 2v2 matches. Those were the days I really remember beeing entertained by pro gameplay. To make a none Starcraft comparison: modern pro matches are like those cheap made for tv christmas movies. They all look the same and the story always boils down to basically the same plot structures. You could cut scenes from them together and most people wont really notice. THe whacky TB and Husky matches are like Tarantino movies. They are chaotic, unpredictable and way more memorable.
People who are passionate about things are dope, even cooler when it comes from something innocuous like a 'videogame' (no shade, I met my wife of 12 yrs playing OG MW3). Thanks for the anaylsis, personal anecdotes, and contextualizing so much. And thank you for not falling into short form content; these kinds of video analysis/essays are way better for my ADHD than any medication
I've been watching you for years at this point, but this is the first time I've ever gotten the full story of Wings of Liberty. Up until now it's just been scraps of cutscenes and in-game dialogue from your challenge runs. That does explain why Tychus isn't in the expansions. Never thought about it.
56:45 I get that this video focuses on WoL, but really, just no. Infested Stukov first came up in SC1 "DLC" missions of questionable canonicity, but this being a RETROspective we must acknowledge that they made him proper canon in HotS. Stukov was infested and then cured BY THE PROTOSS! And in the SC1 missions JIM WAS THERE TOO! Out of everyone present in that scene Dr. Hanson is the one with the LEAST practical experience of curing infestation, and the others are straight up gaslighting her into letting her people get killed.
You have my favorite definition of “Brief” on the Internet.
Ah yes, "Brief".....In mobile phone game terms.
Reporting for duty
Not even 3 hours
Reminds me on the "QUICK" Retrospectives from PatricianTV... every video about 6-8 hours... and every game at least 2-4 videos long...
@@thehidden56 barely anything.
The fact this man can speedrun the entirety of WoL in less time than it takes him to "briefly" summarize it is hilarious to me. Please, never change Grant, you glorious goof.
Kerrigan's inclusion in All In is the thing that makes it a masterpiece. From a narrative perspective including her as a final boss just fits perfectly. But from a gameplay perspective, I think she fits a very important role. Hold out missions are the hardest type of mission to balance in RTS. If you've ever mastered Last Stand in LOTV, you know that once you get the right defense up, the mission practically plays itself. But if you ramp up the attacks too much, then it can become unfair how easily the attacks overwhelm the player.
Kerrigan's role in all in is to be a disruptor. It takes a bit, but once you get the defense set up and the economy going, the attack waves on all in aren't too tough to deal with. Kerrigan's job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable. She comes to throws a wrench in your plan. She puts a crack in your defenses and give the attack wave an opening. Forcing you to scramble to plug the hole.
It's genius. As this occasional attacker, she ensures that passive defense isn't an option while not over tuning the main attack waves.
...except for the fact that her undisclosed bullshit mechanics all perfectly align to be hardcountered by mass marines. The basic, spammable, already stupidly overpowered unit which you're probably only shying away from because they've steamrolled every other challenge at this point (alongside tanks, and not counting Maw's ripfields ofc).
@@Photoloss Pretty sure her true hardcounter are Ghosts lol. Also mass marines? Does your Kerrigan not have Razor Swarm? On brutal it kills like 10-20 marines in one shot if I remember right, and sure I've seen techniques where you bait her out and micro hard, but why? Why even bother? I just get mass ghosts and sniper her till she's dead, far easier to do and more fun too. Or get mass BC. Just make sure you have a sacrificial lamb for the Implode and the BC mass Yamato will obliterate her in seconds.
@@Photoloss except for the fact that on all in marine-based defense effective against 4 whole units (Kerri included)and without 50 SCVs repairing wall will crumble before Kerri show up. And razor swarm
@@stankobarabata2406 Marines are dirt cheap and minerals aren't much of a constraint in All In to begin with. Basically just drop a hercules full of them in front of your bunker line, GO NOVA, and, if you're fancy, build some depots or turrets on the cliff to try and bait the first Razor Swarm. Or if you have drop pods just build like 4+ reactor rax and rally on top of her lol.
Marines are easy, efficient, and don't constrain your options for tackling the rest of the mission nearly as much as investing a huge pile of gas into ghosts or BCs. But if you _happen to have_ ghosts or BCs, because you like them or perhaps because you're playing vs air without HMEs for some reason, then sure just using those probably is easier than making extra marines just to deal with Kerrigan.
@@Photoloss As I said, it's too much work. Building depos then microing marines sounds like a hassle.
Also like you don't really use Gas that much in all in. You're literally building static defense for half of the mission which only costs minerals. I'd rather go for a gas heavy unit to offload the mineral strain on repairing bunkers/planetaries/turrets. Hence why I said Ghost/BC is practically the BiS choice for this misson. Also BC works wonders on ground All in as well. They're one of the best units next to the Banshee to send out to clear the Nyduses as they're well protected with their ability and have the yamato for when you need to be quick. And they're good vs Kerrigan overall. Same with a ton of Ghosts except you can't snipe the Nyduses I think.
I tried using HME but honestly I prefer the disruptor myself, but the HME is really better for air. Even then for Air I just call in some Hel's angels and easily steamroll most broodlords without much issue.
>looks at description
>monstrous touhou-ridden name for the lost viking section
this is gonna be good
Geeet Touhoued on!
TOUHOU HIJACK
we love touhou hijacks
Touhou hijacks will survive to the ends of the earth.
Something else about the secret mission, that Grant didn't mention is another amazing fact linking to the original Starcraft.
Mengsk is studying, experimenting, cloning and building weapons using alien lifeforms, the exact thing he accused the confederacy of in the original, that he used to gather allies, and turn people against the confederacy, and yet here he is, knowingly continuing their work on xenomorphic life to turn it into ultimate weapons to crush all resistance and conquer new planets.
Which is fully in character for him, as Grant mentioned constantly throughout the video, he cares about power, not the risks, but it's still an amazing throwback to the very first installation mission, and also the exact brutalness from Mengsk that lead to the Horner mission chain.
Now I need a recap of starcraft one and brood war
I mean Mengsk was also turned into a stereotypical Tyrant trope. Just a power hungry madman. Old Mengsk was basically Tywin levels of villain. Smart, always with a scheme or a plan, and using overwhelming force where needed. An amazing antagonist.
Current Mengsk is basically a whole other person. Same as Raynor almost, except Raynor kept his old personality, and instead his motivations got uprooted and turned into a typical goody-two shoes story.
Not only that, he came to power literally by using aliens as bioweapons. Finally taking him down in HotS was so gratifying. Funny as a lot of people, for some reason, thought Mensk wouldn't be the final mission in the Zerg campaign.
I just replayed and found out goofing around that on Sudden Strike, Nova Covert Op's second mission, if you scanner sweep behind the zerg base, there's a bunch of cloaked ghosts and a Psi Emitter, hinting at the overarching plot of the ghosts (like Nova) causing zerg attacks. You can never see this angle unless you waste a scan sweep (was playing an Archepelago run, so was a bit OP at the time and scanning at random). Not terribly related, but just wanted to chorus some fun notes about environmental storytelling, that 10 years down the line, I'm still finding out about things in the games.
One thing that always stuck out to me was how despite the Raiders' forces still being capable of deploying hundreds of mechs and small starship fleets, they managed to retain that sense of a ragtag, small-ish (at least in the grand scheme of things) group of rebels doing hit-and-run operations on much larger forces from the Swarm, Tal'Darim to the Dominion. It's especially apparent compared to HotS and LotV, which has you control an entire armada of Zerg/Protoss, and further reinforced by WoL's upgrades being restricted by the Raiders only having so many Credits to go around, while the sequels auto-unlock alternative options as you progress their campaigns, with the restriction being that you can only choose one upgrade for a single unit.
Not to mention in the case of the protoss you can go back and forward between different upgrades, because you ate not on a budjet.
The HotS system doesn't really make sense though, both Evolution options already exist so Abathur could just archive both of them but still only allow 1 per mission because the DNA changes are mutually exclusive.
"We all know that Tosh is the better waifu"
That is one thing I never expected to hear, but in hindsight absolutely do agree.
Shame we never got Coop Tosh or Tosh's Terrazine Quest campaign...
He's not only the better waifu, but also the best damn bro.
@@simplysmiley4670 exploding military facilities with entire civilian city blocks around not a bro move tho
(and this is from reportage from Kate Lockwell, not Donni, so its not propaganda)
also in real history, every time revolutionaries break open gates of the prisons, its civilians who immediately suffer the most (because most criminals don't want to die to get revenge on the government, but return to their criminal ways against fellow citizens)
Isn't there a fan Co-op Tosh Commander in Nexus Coop?
From videos I have seen, it's VERY dope! You should defenetly try it, because our Tosh-waifu deserves better than this!
Also, could you please scour the internet for custom Tosh factions beyond Nexus Coop? Some of us, primeraly me, want to see how many of and how different each Tosh-factions are!...
...Hmmm, Tosh and Waifu combined together...
*Oh no... It's stuck in my head now!...*
*...FEM-TOSH IS STUCK IN MY MIND NOW, ALONGSIDE THE CONCEPT OF REGULAR TOSH HAVING A SECRET SISTER TWIN, WHICH IS BASICLY AN "OC" OF HIM WITH DIFFERENT SPINS ON HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND TRAITS! I CAN'T UNTHINK IT NOW!...*
A N D I D O N ' T W A N T T O , atleast with Tosh's Twin-sister concept. Just need to dive enough into lore of Tosh for confirmations and inspirations sometime later.
Thank you Giant Granthony does Gaming ! I cant wait to watch this brief retrospective
"A brief retrospective" that's longer than many of the game's speedruns!
Wings of Liberty is a masterpiece of blending storytelling with gameplay. I seriously hope that Stormgate or ZeroSpace will be able to deliver on the promise of giving us more of what made Wings of Liberty so good.
This retrospective is as brief as the lost viking achievement
In that choice with what do with the colonists, I expected I would actually have to do something like the culling. Nothing in the pre-mission dialogue is about how you will just have to defend colonists from the Zerg. So I never sided with Selendis until a few years ago, never even knew what the mission was actually about. They make it seem like you have to kill the colonists, which is a choice I would never make.
... And then when you choose Safe Haven there isn't any sign of infestation is sight!
Basically the story changes depending on what you pick, so that you can't make the "wrong" choice
If you side with Hanson the infestation is in the early stages and a cure is possible, if you go with Selendis the colony is already gone
Same with Nova vs Tosh, if you go with Nova then Tosh is a lunatic and Spectres are a ticking time bomb, but if you side with Tosh then Nova was lying and they're fine
@creativename1673 yeah but terrazin IS making people (and protoss, but especially people as protoss are more mentally durable) Amon-possessed lunatics because it strengthens your connection with the Void, realm where evil god sits
so this have to mean that Nova choice canon
but then you have Spectres in LotV epilogue
and they not crazy despite being terrazin-high and physically in the Void already
wtf
i guess Tosh and his men had anime training montage offscreen to make themself more Amon-proof than freaking Protoss with hundreds of years of mental discipline
@creativename1673 I have to disagree with you on the nova vs tosh one. It doesn't change the story at all based on your pick, but rather neither side is telling you the full story. If you side with tosh, you find that they're more dangerous than he let on to, but less do than nova implies
@creativename1673 The Tosh choice doesn't need to warp reality. If Dr. Hanson is still around after siding with Tosh she'll say that spectres are basically just people, not more unstable (keep in mind Amon is not revived yet so any future possession is well beyond this scope), but also still capable of regular cruelty and insanity just like the general population. And if you side with Nova YOU are the one betraying Tosh, so OF COURSE he goes off the rails. The fact his voodoo doll fails in such a ridiculous manner suggests he hadn't exactly planned and prepared it in advance, and his facility existing (or getting destroyed by Nova without your help) if you side with him does not cause any lore issues either.
At the same time NCO demonstrates that even without Amon the Terrazine can undo ghost mind wipes, and we know both the training and the work itself is godawful. Add a certainly inhumane experimental spectre program on top of that and it's no wonder the original spectres went crazy, anyone would if you tortured them enough and gave them the means to lash out.
My headcanon for Safe Heaven is that Hanson did find a cure for the infestation virus, but just specifically for the strain that infected Haven, and since the virus mutates incredibly quickly (which she comments on after the mission on Meinhoff) the cure is completely useless against the rest of the infestations around the sector. Still incredibly convoluted, sloppy storytelling on blizzard's side, but this is at least a thread of logic that somewhat explains what happens
Also Haven declares itself independent and the Dominion probably doesn't even officially _know_ about them, let alone any infestation research there, so really unless you for some bizarre reason believed Dr. Hanson could create an "anti-zerg grey goo" superweapon all of it will only really come into play during or after LotV. With Valerian at the helm, a time of relative peace to invest in large-scale biomedical industry and reclaiming lost planets from the zerg, and through that the resources and incentive to keep developing the cure to remain effective against different strains and future adaptations.
Mind you the protoss _already had_ a cure, which to their knowledge worked perfectly. And not only should Selendis as one of their top leaders know about it, JIM WAS THERE TOO! Admittedly "our facility got destroyed, here's what we have left of our nanobot recipe, see if you and stetboi can make anything useful from it" wouldn't really make for a good mission.
Oh boy, 2AM is the perfect time to watch a 3 hour video game retrospective.
I really love how for Bel'shir, you not only get an achievement for defeating the protoss base, but it is also an alternative win condition. It is a shame that only three missions across all of SC2 have alternative win conditions, and that includes Welcome to the Jungle. The Dig has one and Purification from Legacy of the Void. The latter though is kinda silly as by the time you might get around to destroying the last zerg base, you might as well just finish off the last set of locks. And depending on which base that is, you really have to go out of your way not to win the intended way.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this means Uploads on the archive channel will be resuming shortly!
Can't wait for more episodes of the Purifier campaign
Been waiting on a Starcraft retrospective after the beautifully done Warcraft 3 Retrospective. Well done!
Magnum opus tier video.
And we finally get lore for Grant's almost irrational hate for doctor Hanson. It's her being snappy a couple of times. I think she's fine. She brings in a lot of neat lore comments while having this aura of a scientist/leader of colonist who has some serious stuff hidden in her past. Whatever it is, she's way overqualified for her job, and she shows it repeatedly. She's like a look into an alternate path Jim Rayron could've taken, if after all the crazy stuff from before he decided to retire and live peacefully. That wouldnt' be the correct choice imo since the Sector still needs Jim Raynor, but when you get older you can see the allure in that, and not just because she pecks him on the cheek if you help her.that one line of dialogue during her on-boarding. I think she's fine. She brings in a lot of neat lore comments while having this aura of a scientist/leader of colonist who has some serious stuff hidden in her past. Whatever it is, she's way over
yeah but her rapidly developing cure for the zerg virus that promptly vanishes from the plot (again, same thing was already happened when Artanis healed Stukov but then he again appeared infested and cure poofed from the story) is incredibly silly
I always imagined Grant being a bloodthirsty refugee-killing psychopath for his anti-Hanson stance. I always side with Dr. Hanson mostly because I figured not even Tassadar would give up on those civilians so easily, and that Selendis is falling into the habits of the old, dogmatic attitudes of Aldaris. Sure, the refugee missions are indeed a bit of a slog, but I figured Raynor wouldn't abandon those in need. He's already suffered enough with an Infested Kerrigan.
I'm probably of the mindset in that we've seen enough dark, gritty stuff in SC1, and needed some optimism in the story. So I didn't mind the overall tone shift in Starcraft II's plot.
For me it just feels like a manufactured "happy ending" siding with her. It's not the cure existing I have a problem with but rather how the infestation just vanishes..???
I would've preferred it where the cure can save uninfected citizens but any already affected need to be put down. Similar to how the mission plays when siding with Selendis. It wasn't necessarily a bad choice, just the boring one, it felt rushed and too.. "i snap my fingers and make the problem vanish" style. If that makes sense.
@@AtomicRobloxProductions When I first played the mission I had assumed the infestation was elsewhere, instead of being limited to five people in a cage, whereas siding with Selendis put us in the infestation zone. Definitely feel like the idea of branched paths was a mistake, seeing as how in two instances it involved Raynor betraying his allies.
Holy shit I autoplayed into this despite it being only 23 mins old. Thanks grant!! Love you, love starcraft!!
There are no coincidences, only signs. ;-)
Just recently I finished a complete playthrough of Wings of Liberty. I played all the missions, listened to all the dialogues and watched all the cutscenes. I do that every few years, but only with WoL. Your video came just in time, thank you!
There's one thing that you didn't mention and I believe it's worth mentioning; it's another of the many winks and nods the developers had made towards the old players. The first three missions of WoL take place on Mar Sara, the third one is an evacuation mission. The first three missions of Starcraft 1 also took place on Mar Sara and the third one wass also an evacuation mission. This shows that Blizzard could use nostalgia as their tool, but it wasn't their only tool, not even the main one.
RIP Incontrol and Totalbiscuit.
The news of their deaths had been double shocking. They were both my age and both passed away before reaching forty.
I know many people love Starcraft 1 to death, and I like that game a lot as well.
However, many of the missions on each campaign is just
Kill the enemy bases, rinse and repeat. So it can get not just repetitive but tiring when playing continuously as you gotta restart all your economy and base progress each mission.
Wings of Liberty has some really good and varied mission objectives which helps mitigate that problem and I find myself easily playing it continuously!
It's somewhat better in brood war compared to the base game. Especially with the terran missions like stealing battle cruisers or enduring nukes or whatnot. But yeah, I agree, mission variety was way better in starcraft 2. But I do appreciate blizzard increasing video game quality from warcraft 1 to legacy of the void.
That's exactly my problem with it
For the computer science nerds:
To simulate this, I created a Mission class that holds all of the data for each mission. The class has one method: isPlayable, which does as it says on the tin (by checking if it has already been played, the split choice wasn't done, prereq unlocked, mission count, etc.). I then had a great time defining every mission and its requirements, though I skipped all of the split missions. Because they are all dead ends, those don't have to be simulated, and we can multiply the output by 8 (2^3 where 3 are the 3 split missions: Haven, Ghosts/Spectres, and Char).
With all the data defined, it was relatively straightforward to implement a Depth First Search to traverse the tree that was made. Breadth First Search ran into memory issues, so DFS was required. For checking, I printed out every 100,000th run (and when run on the command line, threw it into a text file), and all of our spot checks were reasonable. Printing out every combination would have taken ~532 GB of hard drive space which I opted not to do.
If you want to check the code: pastebin.com/FMjsfWx0
Very cool! Thanks for your effort!
This video is like the pricing in the stores "hey look i'm under 3 hours" xD
Love it
GiantGrantGaming: The last multi-hour length campaign analysis video I made was over a year ago.
Me: Hell, it's about time
The funny thing is, Welcome to the Jungle isn't a mission I generally find too tricky and go to asap for the Goliath. Always amused me that it's considered one of the harder ones.
edit: the hybrid upgrade system is something I was thinking of for a mod I'm working on. I was also thinking of the possibility of allowing a much cheaper 1-mission version if you don't want it perma, or allowing you to research upgrades in missions and carry a limited number over to the next mission.
The Goliath Upgrades are some of my favorites, so speedrunning towards getting Goliaths as early as possible is my general strategy for campaign too.
Funny enough I feel like WttJ got harder after I heard people consider it a hard mission, like a psychological effect.
It was pretty hard for me, but i never struggled at Supernova at the slightest so was surprised to hear its also considered hardcore
Its probably hard on brutal but yeah on normal its nice early mision especialy if you have upgraded marauders.
For the Haven mission design, imo it will be much better if Raynor and the Daelamm team up to deal with both the infestation and the zerg forces. We can have a choice between purging the infested colonies while the protoss is dealing with the zerg reinforcement; or we can obliterate the zerg bases while the Daelamm focus on the infested stuffs. It feels so awkward to chase our protoss friend away when they just want to clear the infected at their home doorstep.
Starcraft 2 incredible in many ways, single aspect that i was felt lacking is that i want BIGGER fucking maps, with more difficult terrain
so reapers and transport ships (medevacs and hercules) can shine more, and more complex in-game choices can be made, like choosing who to help by attacking one of two bases instead of picking one of two options out of the mission
so, like Warcraft 3 a bit (it had simpler effects and much smaller unit count, i know, but anyway)
The issue with your proposal is that having a major zerg presence on Haven, including the starting point of vanilla Haven's Fall for that matter, just doesn't make sense in the slightest. Either we catch the protoss right as they're instating a quarantine and it's our job to nip the infestation in the bud, or the planet should be glassed already because they're clearly willing to go that far. And Jim fighting off the protoss while there are active full-fledged hives doesn't make any sense either, at best it'd be a reversed merge of Evacuation and Smash&Grab where you try to get out the non-infested colonists while the protoss and zerg try to destroy each other, but then we'd be back to square one on the narrative side and the whole mission chain would feel meaningless/would need a new finale.
Mandatory Haven's Fall is the grim, gritty writing a decent portion of SC1 subscribed to. Mandatory Safe Haven is the heroic Jim SC2 goes for. The choice as present in vanilla doesn't work at all without warping off-screen reality.
Also, because of how the timings worked out in the first mission, I first assumed that the bonus objective caused the mob to help you.
Grant. I just want to thank you again for reigniting my love for Starcraft. Between videos like these and showcasing all the insanely talented modders and their amazing campaigns and helping to make the CCM to make playing them so easy. Can never thank you enough for all the many many hours ive put into the game since finding your channel 😁
29:19 the lava mechanic is also used in a versus map called Burning Tide, a 3v3 layout map where the goal is for one side to reach a mineral quota first
the coop map Vermillion's Problem did not start with enemies immune to lava, which is the reason why even today enemy waves race to high ground when lava is about to rise, i believe the immunity was added when they introduced mutators
watching this i finally realize why i enjoy these kinds of videos personally. its cause it feels like your listening to a friend that so lovingly hyperfixated on something they love that you can just let them talk and enjoy the thing they enjoy
I have seen the Starcraft 2 Campaign so many times, but your narration style makes me watch any games story again!
I really love how you talk about something but show very subtly some other mechanics that you have described before. Talking about mission design and showing you getting an achievement. Talking about split choices of missions while showing again the options for lab research and armory. I like it how it helps highlight those things again without needed to repeat yourself.
And overall brilliant video Grant, absolutely worth the wait
I remember playing this campaign and really thinking to myself: Goddamn, they really set the bar for campaign rts games
A shame that almost no other developer put so much time/effort and detail in their rts campaigns and focus more on the multiplayer aspect
That's 100% a legit win. Not being "acclimated" to a balance change is just an excuse. That's part of a professional player's job. If some rando could incorporate a balance change faster than a pro could and that rando won because of that strategy then it's 100% a legit win.
nice upside to the night, good to see another essay doc! loved the wc3 one
Didn't quite get the 3:33:33.
Never mind! You're still awesome! Looking forward to watching this!
I love seeing all these "brief" retrospectives on games pop up. You know you're in for a good few days when you see one.
I’ve wanted someone to do one of these longform analyses for WoL, glad to see it’s you doing it!
What do you mean Long form? This is brief
Great video! This particular retrospective brought back some memories for me because Wings of Liberty was the first RTS I played when I was a kid. I remember only beating half the missions and getting my dad to play the rest. I'm still pretty bad at RTS, so I'm glad people like you who have such a deep understanding of the game are able and willing to share your particular appreciation of the game with casual players like me!
Thank you grant for letting us be part of that SC2 journey.
Wake up babe, new 'Brief retrospective...' just dropped
Hell, it’s about time this semi alive channel dropped another banger. Thank you Grant!
This is a nice early Christmas present!
Oh boy, another behemoth of a video just in time for my Xmas break? Thanks, Grant!
god what an awesome and lovely video. I grew up on RTS games, Command and Conquer: Tiberium war, Supreme Commander 2, Starcraft 2, hell even one of the Age of Empire games but it's so long ago I don't remember which one (there were cheatcodes for lasergun spacemen and sports cars with bazookas. People don't make those kinds of cheatcodes anymore)
It was really nice getting a thorough look through not only the Wings of Liberty campaign from a mechanical/design perspective, a narrative perspective but also a cultural/historical perspective. The various anecdotes about memorable matches, major and minor, of competitive culture then and now, brought up loads of memories of my first time playing SC2. It got me to think about the characters, Finlay in particular, way more than I had before and I think he's a really interesting take on a story of redemption.
I think the open letter to Microsoft regarding maps and balance is absolutely spot-on. I never played much competitive SC2, by that I mean I barely touched the multiplayer and skirmish modes *at all*, because they just didn't have any of the fun and cool units. When I looked at SC2 (or any RTS) I saw them as toy boxes, the campaign being a big bountiful chest of cool stuff, with all kinds of bespoke playmats and story to knit it all together, meanwhile PvP was a small cramped thing with like half the toys, the playmats make no sense and there's no rhyme or reason for any of it, and there isn't even enough dangling threads to make a half-decent headcanon out of it.
If the Skirmish/PvP mode had all the same units, weirder maps with unique gimmicks and just the barest hint of context given to what was happening (hell I'd even take "training simulation for adjutant") I'd be 100x more onboard with it. Would it be less suited for top-ranked, ultra-serious, mega-prize-pool competitive play? Maybe. Would it be more fun to watch? Probably, I think. Would it be more fun to play? absolutely.
One last thing: Thank you Grant, for creating an awesome community, for fostering an incredible modding scene, and for making amazing content, and again, thank you for making this video.
My favorite kind of videos of GGG: multiple-hours videoessays about games that i know so good that i can explain them with my eyes closed.
Starcraft as a franchise has, without a doubt, shaped my taste in gaming. 2010 with release of WoL took a special place in my heart and I am always glad to look back on my favourite game, even tho so much time has passed.
Thank you Grant and Merry Christmas. Really liked your ending interpretation. Countless runs and I've never even thought about it like that.
I am only 1/3 through the video but I want to thank you for refreshing my experience playing this campaign for the first time; it was great because no hand holding and you die exactly as you will expect for not learning; the difficulty was there exactly as I wanted when I played on brutal, having to reload saves on mistakes. Crazy to think that Starcraft was a mostly a monocore/dualcore game for all the things that happens in it.
Man, playing through this video feels so much like memory lane.
Watching you play through all those missions just gave me a nostalgia trip, remembering how much I got bodied on those missions the first time I played Brutal. How I had to play smart and fast during the Terrazine Mission. Or the fact that I got so much more enjoyment in the Side with the Protoss mission... just... so many things were all hit and I'm all for it.
Also seeing some of the missions like in Gates of Hell. I didn't even realize I could do that! There were so much things here I saw that I didn't know I missed.
This is really making me want to replay SC2... and this video just reminded me why I loved the game and had so much fun replaying the campaign so many times.
Sidenote: All-In Sky version is still easier on Brutal for me. No way am I suffering Ultralisks and Nydus Worms when I can trivialize this with Hive Mind Emulator Brood Lords.
You know its a good day when theres a GGG 3 hr upload
Awesome retrospective, Grant. Looking forward to the rest of the series. :D
The Lost Viking achievements were no problem for me in particular because I am an arcade and shmup veteran player, have been one for decades. I actualy got more then 1.5 million points (3 times what you would need for the achievements) on the mini-game just for kicks, however I do understand your points and the fact that most players of SC2 are not arcade shmup fans so moving those achievements to the Feats of Strenght category does make logical sense. I remember helping 2 friends of mine get that 500k points because they were so frustrated with it. Ah, good times :)
There's also the fact that mashing the fire button instead of holding it down makes you *SIGNIFICANTLY* more effective, and doing so without a macro is a miserable chore to maintain for 45+ minutes or however long it takes a newbie to rack up enough points. It just has a lot of individually insignificant snags for new or RTS-focused players.
I am always having a blast watching your Long retrospektiv Videos and this was no exception. I hope Heart of the warm an the Portos campaign will geht there own Videos in the Future and i cant wait for them to Release :)
Holy shit, best Christmas gift ever!
honestly, after you mentioned how the first two missions are so similar, i also realized that the maps are also incredibly similar, the path you take is much the same, just that your starting position is moved more to the right to make space for the bonus objective base in the bottom left
Another Fine retrospective to add to my GGG Long form Video Collection.
I was so waiting for you to finally drop your Starcraft retrospective
Ah, brilliant timing, Grant. I have a 6-hour train journey ahead of me today, so this is perfect to put on in the background.
Really glad for the Starcraft content you are making, GGG!
The fact that wings make overmind make his plan true not fail and probady telling us it may not use full power to fight befor died, is so funny like he died yet he literaly plan it
It's interesting how The Overmind, a biological creature through and through that gets called "abomination" and "monstrosity" on numerous occassions...is so robotic in its nature.
How non-animal it and the Zerg it leads are - there is no self-preservation in sight, only objectives to be met, simple, straightforward objectives
Even cellular organisms, even our cells in bodies aren't as devoid of life as the Zerg and especially the Overmind, seeing how it seemingly plans to die and possibly lead the Zerg (closest relative) to ruin to achieve its grand plan
At least in SC2, in SC1 The Overmind was obiously not "it" but a creature capable of thought and emotion, seeing how it always was gloating about "the glory that is your birthright" and all that schnozz
@@The-jy3yq As per SC2 canon the Overmind basically WAS a flesh robot programmed by Amon. And it basically made the "father's choice" - sacrificing itself in a hopeless situation so its children could be free. At least ignoring how all of that was just a story told by Ouros, who knows how much of it is true, how much was twisted to manipulate Zeratul and how much was outright fabrication.
And yes the SC1 Overmind had very different vibes, essentially falling to its own hubris much the same way the protoss did _against_ it previously.
i remember when i was a kid the reason i always sided with the protoss on Haven wasn't the fact that it made more sense than siding with Hanson, but because as a kid i found fighting the protoss there impossible, sure i can win against them nowadays, but i just prefer purging the infested
for the second mission i feel like they could have also added a little tip-bit on lifting and landing buildings, Like jim saying "oh look here, there is a nice choke point over [pans camera] maybe we can setup a blockade or a choke."
Oh yeah! Cant wait! These are my favorite comfort videos to chill with. Heck yeah thanks grant
The Best early Christmas gift. Thank you Grant
RUclipss recap told me, that you were my most watched RUclipsr. All because of your brief retrospectives!
Every couple of years I can't help but replay all of the starcraft 2 campaigns.
Wings of Liberty is just too good to not keep coming back to
the briefest retrospectiv
What's cool to see about Zeratul's entrance here... is how it inspired a recreation of that SC1 flair Grant showed as an example in Mass Recall.
*The torches going out pair by pair is just a beatifull nod to Zeratul's first appearance in WoL!*
I have completed this campaign dozens of times, I have watched playthroughs dozens of times, but I would gladly watch it one more time
This is a great narrative story and video. I love how you mixed in the personal remembrances of the good times. We would love to go back and experience it all over again, but the time has passed. I think this is one of the issues with the difficulties of the new batch of RTS games in development now. We can't just get the times back because we get a new RTS game to try out.
Grants one man war against the definition of brief makes me chuckle.
liking befor watching. your videos helped me take on the campaigns on hard and brutal. stay safe and frohe weihnachten.
A 'brief' venture. In and out, 20 minutes. My favorite part is 1:54:39
The news is pretty fun
@@samuelhawkins3820 Wdym the news MY EMPEROR IS ON SCREEN, OORAH
I haven't watched it yet, I'm keeping the video aside, but just for the reference I'm commenting because you deserve it :)
Keep up the good work!
- *checks how long the video is*
- 3 hours
- "Hell yeah this is the kind of brief I like"
Me silently listening to the video, having finished Starcraft II multiple times.
Matt during Outbreak: You can build a Missile Turret during the day to detect the Infester and kill it.
Me: *facepalming myself out of reflex for never thinking about that*
Lets go, this is fuel for the perfect day, thanks Grant!
Grant when playing Zero Hour : **yawn*
Grant when talking about Zero Hour : *"Epic and intense"*
At least Grant still has the same opinion as us when it comes to Dr. Hanson xD
I guess deep inside I knew this was coming. A welcome surprise this is!
As a massive HuK fan, the random shoutout to him was awesome. Eat your heart out Naniwa.
I am a simple man...3 hour video from Grant....sold
Never thought I would see the SC2 equivalent of this video. Thanks.
1:33:09
I’m pretty sure the only cloaked enemies are the Ghost who EMPs Tosh in Breakout, and the Protoss under the mothership in Maw of the Void
Observers on The Dig if you count that as enemies.
Technically Banelings on Devil's Playground, since they don't unburrow and instead just explode from underground
Also aren't there some spider mines?
@@The-jy3yq The banelings do in fact unburrow, and there's a few in Evacuation as well. Functionally they might as well be cloaked attackers though because you sure aren't reacting in time for the difference to be meaningful. I don't recall any enemy spider mines though.
Also Orlan has a cloaked ghost to drop his nuke. And IIRC Welcome to the Jungle has observers too, but nobody cares.
I love this videos so much, I haven't watch it yet, but the WC3 was so good I just now this will also be a masterpiece, SC2 was a videogame my dad bought to me on a birthday when I was 10, it ment so much to me, and it still does, it made me the RTS fan I'm today
Loved WarCraft 3 retrospective and looking forward to watching this, since I also know and love a lot about these games and could easily talk about them for hours without even trying, so Grant feels like a kindred spirit
And Wings of Liberty is super special for me. In 2010 I was in a bad accident that left me crippled for life and bedridden for over a year. And while everything sucked, my friend came back from work-and-travel program to the US and brought with him a shiny big box for Wings of Liberty, which he gave to me. Our hospitals didn't have Internet at the time, but I spent countless hours playing WoL campaign on my crappy laptop. For a little while this game was one of the very few good things in my life, a break from the gloom and literal daily pain. Not like "it was the only thing that kept me going" or whatever, but it sure helped. 2010 was the worst year of my life, but Wings of Liberty was good
Now i wanna se "In deep retrospective"
Did you see that concave on top of the ramp the Outlaws the middle base had? Literally just showing the player a damn near immortal defensive setup, and you didn't even mention it. Very clever design.
Hey Grant, thanks for explaining what you liked and didn't like about Hanson and the colonist story line!
I've been following you for years but always found you memeing about her almost obnoxious (since I actually liked her and found other characters way more of a travesty), but your thorough explanation was very nice.
Everyone always just heaps all the love on WoL. I hope you also give a brief look at the other campaigns too. Warts and all I still love them
Comments for the alogirthmic throne! Video looks great Grant!
Thank you Grant! Thank you. I love these videos and after consuming them once, they help me sleep. Only on like the 5th mission right now but the second mission with gold minerals should be: In utter darkness, no?
I had wondered why you had such hostility towards the doctor in your videos and streams. As a twelve year old kid who started the franchise (and RTS in general) with Wings of Liberty, I saw the option to save the colonists and went "Yeah, that's what good guys do!" and just... never gave the other option a second thought.
Since playing Heart of the Swarm and learning more about the Zerg and the lore, it does make a much better story to help the protoss here, and it's wild to me that I had never considered the idea of just... curing a virus older than humanity itself in a few hours (and NOBODY MENTIONS IT AGAIN!) to be absolutely fucking ridiculous
It was years since I saw the ending cinematic, and I really like your interpretation. "Damn shame" says Tychus, when I first played it I thought he was still thinking he'll kill Kerrigan, "A shame to have done all this only to kill her" but I suppose now the shame is that he understand Jimmy, he got to care for him, and even for the cause, only to have it all take away.
The 'In Utter Lameness' part really hit home for me. Sure there were time when all you saw was mass Swarm Host or Oracles were completley opressive. But the sanitized competitive games are not memorable at all.
What is stuck in my head are the goofy, jank and chaotic games. Husky's Imba League or the late Total Biscuits invitationals with unique maps and actual 2v2 matches. Those were the days I really remember beeing entertained by pro gameplay.
To make a none Starcraft comparison: modern pro matches are like those cheap made for tv christmas movies. They all look the same and the story always boils down to basically the same plot structures. You could cut scenes from them together and most people wont really notice.
THe whacky TB and Husky matches are like Tarantino movies. They are chaotic, unpredictable and way more memorable.
People who are passionate about things are dope, even cooler when it comes from something innocuous like a 'videogame' (no shade, I met my wife of 12 yrs playing OG MW3).
Thanks for the anaylsis, personal anecdotes, and contextualizing so much.
And thank you for not falling into short form content; these kinds of video analysis/essays are way better for my ADHD than any medication
3 hours is not brief, grant!
That said I'm going to watch every minute
I've been watching you for years at this point, but this is the first time I've ever gotten the full story of Wings of Liberty. Up until now it's just been scraps of cutscenes and in-game dialogue from your challenge runs.
That does explain why Tychus isn't in the expansions. Never thought about it.
Hell its about time you made a SC2 retrospective
56:45 I get that this video focuses on WoL, but really, just no. Infested Stukov first came up in SC1 "DLC" missions of questionable canonicity, but this being a RETROspective we must acknowledge that they made him proper canon in HotS. Stukov was infested and then cured BY THE PROTOSS! And in the SC1 missions JIM WAS THERE TOO! Out of everyone present in that scene Dr. Hanson is the one with the LEAST practical experience of curing infestation, and the others are straight up gaslighting her into letting her people get killed.