FILMMAKER REACTS: STARCRAFT 2 | ALL "Heart Of The Swarm" CUTSCENES!!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 มิ.ย. 2024
- UK Filmmaker Kai Zammit reacts to all cutscenes from Starcraft 2 Heart Of The Swarm. I'm watching this from StarCraft 2 The Trilogy - 4K Movie - inc Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm & Legacy of the Void from Gamer's Little Playground.
Not a huge breakdown in this video, I was just enjoying the ride and looking more into the story this week. This one did a proper number on me trying to glue all the pieces together. Not going to lie though, I love doing it!!
🟧 View the original video here: • StarCraft 2 The Trilog...
Watch my in depth breakdown of the Starcraft 2 cinematics - Wings of Liberty, Heart of The Swarm and Legacy of The Void.
• FILMMAKER REACTS TO ST...
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⚡️ Chapters:
0:00 Intro and Filmmaker Reaction
29:32 Filmmaker Final Thoughts
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Narud is a shapeshifter, a follower of the main antagonist of the trilogy: Amon. Amon didn't really have much presence in Wings of Liberty but he was made known through the crystal Zeratul gives to Raynor (which is an optional set of missions, so you could play through without knowing about him) as a galaxy-level threat coming to wipe everyone out. Kerrigan's main thing in the campaign is revenge, but at a certain point she does remember Amon and continues forward still planning to kill Mengsk (because feelings, and to be honest he'd just get in the way in the end), but preparing for the bigger fight ahead.
In addition to this comment: Narud already appears in the first game. Under the guise of "Lieutenant Duran", he initially manipulates the Terran commanders and turns them against each other, almost destroying their efforts. He then helps Kerrigan crush both Terrans and Protoss. Towards the end he suddenly disappears. When you unlock a secret mission, you will meet him again and learn about his true nature, the creation of the Protoss-Zerg hybrids, and receive the first clue to Amon's existence.
Yeah, what he said and also: kinda like Game of Thrones, where you have families squabbling over the throne only to realise there will be no throne if they dont kill the White walkers first. Tadaa!
Wait dont read this, spoiler alert
I told you it's Duran! Duran!
@@rusozawr4969 spoiler from a 2010 game?
HotS was a very in game driven story, so there's some odd skips here and there, it also had the most story branching, which can be a little confusing, given there is a 'true' canon of events, but my favorite component of it is that Kerrigan says 'screw destiny, I'm here for my reasons!' And then sprints headlong right at destiny.
Thing to note for when you approach Legacy of the void, there's an oft forgot cinematic called reclamation. It's not truely a piece of the campaign, but it does some great set up for characterization and stage setting.
I second this, gotta watch Reclamation before getting into it. Aside from one optional mission in WoL you don't see Artanis at all, it'd be a great introduction before getting into LotV proper.
@@zestyaardvarks I agree there was a lot missed due to them being in game vs actual cinematics. One thing I havent seen is someone speed running the game but still including all of the in game dialog and cinematics. I would imagine each vid would be about 2.5 hours long but if someone really wanted to know what was happening without playing the game it would be a good way to go about it.
Try to watch the epilogue cutscenes as well as the other legacy of the void cutscenes.
Reclamation is absolutely necessary, I find it great to watch that then move on to the trailer for the game before actually watching all the cinematics. I really hope he sees this comment.
Missing all the in game cutscenes is really sad. They would bring so much more context to the story and awesome characters you never see in these cutscenes.
Also in terms of what happened with Tychus, in one of the missions Kerrigan says: "I heard about what happened with your friend, Tychus. I'm sorry" Jim: "He made his choice. I made mine."
There was also a short story released that starts off with Jim reflecting on the regrettable turn of events. Something along the lines of 'I've saved Sarah, but my old friend is rotting in his metal coffin'.
@@JJoJam Oh I didn't know that, I only knew about the dialogue from the in-game mission
@@JJoJam is there a link for this? I kinda wanna watch it
As for her death toll: billions. Both human and protoss. As her first pass as the queen of blades, under Amon's command, she was on a genocidal conquest of the galaxy, and was well on her way too.
Is it redemption: as she says herself "I justify nothing... there may be more blood on my hands than yours, but in the end, we're both killers."
I thought it was trillions (which makes sense considering the Terran planetary expansion and when counting a whole other race as the Protoss)
@@lumanianilin1198considering in the first game just within the Newscast "the zerg are invading again" scene Donny says something along the lines of: The casualties are in the trillions", I'd expect trillions or more.
Realistically speaking it will be more, she was rhe Queen of Blades for a long time and killed indiscriminately, so...
@@MegaSteak757 Right, that's where I got that idea from, Donny from the News.
@@lumanianilin1198Checked that one again, Donny says billions, but considering thats only the recent attacks then with her new emergence (and the beginning of that one) trillions might still be more realistic^^
So what you didn't see was when Kerrigan was preparing for her final assault against Arcturus (just before the final mission of the expansion), Velarian was begging her to give him more time to evacuate civilians in one part of the city. At first, she said no because she knew Arcturus (being an expert tactician) would notice it and use it to counter her in the battle. Eventually she agreed to hold off the Swarm in that sector, and Jim saw that she really willing to risk losing to do the right thing.
Woah, they missed a fair few cinematics. i bet you would have loved her arriving on the leviathan
Yeah, it is kind of crazy how many cinematic aren't in there. When I played HoTS the thing I liked the most was the atmosphere and zerg interactions inside the leviathan.
Abither, Zagara, and friends didn't even have a single cutscene.
This is almost like showing the Wings of Liberty story without any scenes inside the Hyperion.
I'm glad you agree, i didn't mention any of inside the Leviathan because technically those scenes arent cinematics. Abathur and Zagara are my favorite characters in all of starcraft, and Abathur's introduction is one of my favorite scenes in HOTS
Most likely because those cinematics are in engine and not nearly as cinematic. much of it was used for exposition mostly anyway if i remember correctly
Yeah , I hope the legacy of the void video he uses doesn't skip 80% of the cinematic. The prolonge changes so much.
And meeting Lt.Stukov.
As for WoL, yes Tychus is dead. Things found in game is that Arcturus let Tychus out of prison with the express mission of killing Kerrigan. He's always in the suit because it is operating a life support system that Arcturus can shut off at any moment.
What I love in that final moment between him and Jim is that he basically gives Jim permission to kill him.
"I made a deal with the devil, Jimmy."
"We all have our choices to make."
"Damn shame."
I think it's a form of redemption/acceptance for Tychus. He got one last run 'out in the galaxy with his buddy'. It's not like Arcturus is the kind of guy to not keep yanking the chain every time Tychus does what he wants anyway.
If you talk to him or Tosh in the cantina with some missions remaining, Tychus would tell you something about having fun and that life being not so bad (I'm trying to paraphrase but I forgot what he actually said), and Tosh would tell you that Tychus is conflicted about doing something he doesn't really want to do.
I also recently realised in the bar fight where Raynor's crew were clamouring after meeting up with Valerian and going to Char, he probably wasn't drunk! He was staring solemnly at his reflection in his drink before he started acting very drunk which seems weird.. He must have decided to take on a big bad role so Jimmy could be the hero. If that was the case in that cutscene...
@@CommissarChaotic I mean how would someone defeat an armoured giant with bare hands ? Tychus might be drinking to forget that his life is threatened 24/7 and it might be a "fuck all" moment from him out of his situation .. Remember Jim was out of prison and Tychus was in and Jim "owes" him still (explains his anger towards him since he also works for Mengsk and Mengsk wants Raynor dead , We don't know if Tychus really loves Jim as much as we see).
Theres so much lore in HOTS over the orignal SC2, the conversations Kerrigan has with Zargara, teaching her not only to be cunning but to aproach things with an open mind and to be a real leader instead of just another Queen, or the fact that kerrigan meets the one who "designed her" and still works for her in the end weaving dna strands for the swarm, Or when she goes to Zerus to find the Primal Zerg, or the whole part with Stukov and Narud.
the Ship scenes bring so much more to the lore if you havn't watched through them you would probably love the interactions between her and her subornates/allies
Kinda boosting a message here, a previous comment recommended watching Reclamation before getting into Legacy of the Void, and I fully agree. It's a great piece for getting familiar with the Protoss, their mentality, and their history, and it introduces you to the protagonist of LotV: Artanis, AND it contextualizes the trailer/opening cinematic to LotV. It's a must-watch because you wouldn't really know Artanis unless you'd played through Brood War, he's only seen once in an optional mission in Wings of Liberty, and mentioned once or twice after.
at 26:53, i love that Jim lowers both the visor and the blast screen so she gets to do as she pleases without him watching
It's not that he's averting his eyes, he knows she's about to set of something akin to a WMD and he's 'battening down the hatches' for protection.
I dont think its really reasonable to assume he would know that shed detonate Mengsk, but i suppose shielding his eyes for the sake of actually shielding them makes sense, however i would have prefered that to happen right before the explosion, and not before she even stabs him, to make it more clear
@@hemagionaltovao5291 Yep .o(This is her revenge and its going to be messy)
I actually didn't notice it in my first play
@@hemagionaltovao5291 Exactly lmao
Well this compilation is basically a very short version of the story. A lot of the plot points and character development happens with the in-game cut scenes and interactions with a lot other different characters.
As for Legacy of the Void, I would recommend watching a few other videos before the main game.
Reclamation
Story so far.
As for the main third part of the game, I highly recommend the StarCraft 2 Legacy of the Void full movie version. It'll cover a lot and wraps up the entirety of StarCraft and StarCraft 2 storylines.
You'd have to watch a 2-hour long video to really understand the full context of the Heart of the Swarm campaign, but this was basically the cliff notes.
When you do finally get around to Legacy of the void, remember to watch the "prologue" called reclamation to get a better understanding of the characters and their emotions.
Anyway thanks for the nice video i'm always stoked to see you upload
Cant wait for the Legacy of the Void video
Gigachad Artanis
Your enthusiasm is infectious, can't wait for the Legacy of the Void reactions! (my personal favorite)
18:05 Looks like you missed it. While she did finish off Warfield, the radio chatter suggests that she allowed the shuttles to escape
One of my favorite details, shows how Kerrigan still has some humanity.
it's a revenge story for Kerrigan because Arcuturus Mengsk is why she is the Queen of Blades in the first place
in SC1, Kerrigan was basically a psychic spec-ops and was sent into a fight by Mengsk to try to stop the Zerg
she barely managed it, but Mengsk decided to leave the rest of their forces behind, including Kerrigan, who got captured and turned into the Queen of Blades due to her psychic potential, acting as a remote hub/battle commander for the Overmind of the Zerg
once the Overmind was destroyed by the Protoss, she regained her autonomy and has been after revenge ever since
Just want to put a small asterisk next to the “regained her autonomy” bit. She was influenced/controlled by Amon until the Xel’naga artifact purified her, like we see in the LotV scene with the artifact ridding the protoss still connected to the Khala of their corruption from Amon.
During HotS, I think the opening cinematic is both her thinking of her revenge, but also the lingering taint from Amons corruption. While I’m not 100% sure the canon events, I think that once she went to Zerus and became Primal Kerrigan, that’s when the corruption was fully removed.
@@lilyfeist8778I always took the HotS opening as less of her still being tainted by Amon and more just a glimpse of if she let revenge consume her as opposed to doing things for the right reasons.
We see her shift some with warfield and by the time we get to Korhal she agrees to land outside the city to help save innocent lives as apposed to her taking the quick path to revenge like we see at the start.
Funny enough this saves her in the end as she needed Jim to finish Mengsk.
She wasn't sent to stop the Zerg, she was sent to keep the Protoss from wiping out the Zerg Mengsk had called to kill the Confederate homeworld.
Well it is a story of revange, started by another story of revange, in the preevents of SC1 Arcturus father Angus Mensk declared the liberty of Korhal from the Confederacy, so they sent 3 ghosts, one of them was Kerrigan, to assassinate him and his whole family, so Kerrigan was on of three who killed Arcturus whole family, his parents, and even little sister where brutally murderd. His father got decapitated and the took his head for proof of the acomplished mission. So by leaving Kerrigan behind, Arcturus got his revange, but everybody keep saying that he is the bad guy in this story.
34:32 "normally the story comes full circle" me remembering the last scene of legacy of the void... yea can't be a more perfect cicle than that 😆
I'm excited to watch it now.
A thing about her transformation:
It's explained that originally the Zerg were transformed by the dark god Amon (and bound to his creation the overmind via psychic link), so when Sarah was the queen of blades originally she was a tool of Amon and not entirely in control. The Overmind remade her (as zerg) to take it's place and oppose Amon, thereby freeing the Zerg hive from his control, but since it hinged on her creation by the overmind which was a tool of amon it didn't work and she ended up still being a bad guy being influenced to commit genocide.
Here she transforms into a Primal Zerg instead, (the original creatures that Amon used to create the Zerg hive) which lets her keep her free will while exerting a greater control of the Zerg hive mind, and makes her psychic abilities greater than any other being known to man basically (in an ingame message her power level is described by a ships computer as "unquantifiable")
Just forget about everything else and watch Legacy of the Void. This is so fun to watch
Both Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void added so much story content and made so many mechanical/balancing changes that they can truly be called expansions. Perhaps they would have been a bit slim as a standalone release, but not by much. One could argue that the Legacy of the Void wasn't as strong as the first two story lines, but as an overall arc it works!
Still waiting for the WoW BfA cinematic analysis ;)
Keep it up, these are fun to watch!
Oh they're coming! Either the next video or one after. I think it's called Old Soldier... That was the one I was told to start with.
Thanks for watching these, it makes me really happy to see you get so immersed in the story and you pick up things really fast. ❤ the last one is a bit longer, so you might have to split it into 2 parts, but its also very very good.
Thank you so much for watching! I'm super glad to hear you're enjoying these videos. KZ
"My pleasure darlin', it always was" (queue tears) - so beautiful; Kerrigan is my favourite character of all games so far
I was too impatient for this XD. thank you so much for doing this!
Due to a lot of context and cutscenes missing: It is not only a story about revenge. As Zeratul mentioned, the Zerg were altered/influenced by the "Dark One" when they were elevated (they kinda lost their free will). When the initial Queen of Blades was created she was under that influence as well. With the death of the Overmind in sc1, the now, voluntarily evolved, new Queen of Blades, is free from that.
Never have I clicked a video this fast! Love the reactions and breakdowns, keep em coming!
Watching your Wings of Liberty reaction made me reinstall SC1 and Brood War so I can replay it all from the start. I haven't actually played it since the remaster came out. Thanks for your reactions!
The first time I watched that little zergling stare at her...I got chills. I still feel something to this day.
The one detail I love is that every scene we see of Kerrigan, is that her eyes are hardened. They are just full of rage, until she looks at Jim. And then they become soft pools of humanity. That is encapsulated in the final scene, where she almost becomes like a school girl when she turns to him. Her eyes are so soft, and her demeanour is a complete opposite to what it was throughout the whole game.
it helps to understand all of SC2 in context of SC.
I waited outside the PC store in a line that went down around the corner on the day the game came out ('96?)as if always loved the warcraft games and to be able to play an RTS by Blizzard in the style of warcraft but set in a Sci fi setting was just too many dreams come true! (not to mention it had a killer level designer to make your own campaigns to go head to head with your friends!)
but I digress - in the original SC you could play as all three races - it was a complete game.
(I'll come back to Kerrigan in a min)
vs in SC2 it was a surprise when it was first released as you could ONLY play the human story arc.
then the expansion came out which was Zerg oriented but specifically from Kerrigan's perspective - this is also why Jim had to take a back seat in the story because you're no longer playing a human storyline so he didn't actually have a place in that story while playing the game.
then finally you have the Protoss (always were my fave to play as in original SC - fewer numbers but they more than made up for it in individual op strength and abilities!)
so they were very clever in how they carried the story on through three different arcs with each release and also kept players coming back for more because you'd have to wait for the next release etc if you wanted to play Zerg or Protoss.
also each campaign mission in SC2 was way more story driven, they made more sense in teems of feeling like you were achieving a goal.
vs in SC the campaigns were much more like the og RTS style of "my base vs your base"
to give context of Kerrigan.
she was a ghost in SC - like super spy with all the latest gadgets and toys including cloaking.
in the game you could deploy her if you're playing as human and she was bad arse and op as hell.
absolutely loved her character.
then something happened to her (I don't fully recall as we're talking about like 28 years ago when I played it!) and she was captured by the Zerg and you'd play the campaign as the Zerg at that point and she was put in a cryssalis and once full metamorphosis was complete she emerged as the Queen of blades to become their new leader and give the Zerg focus.
Jim was one of the main commanders up to that point and obvs they were in love with each other.
he started to see Mansk for who he really was and when she was taken his whole world collapsed and he broke off from Mansk - hence his falling out and becoming a wanted man.
so in SC2 these character arcs are already in mid swing, they're not just fresh stories about characters that have a story to progress through - they have a huge, rich history as a backdrop behind their actions so some of their motivations and actions they take are driven by that history from SC - that's why some things they do may seem out of context because you need the context from the first game to truly get it.
You sir had a great reaction to this! Cant wait to see your reaction to the final part !
One of the things I loved about the cinematics is how they establish scale of various ships and units you play with in the game. You are used to see them as these little things you move around on the map in top-down view, but in the cinematics you are always amazed to identify them, from the little "doggies" (zerglings) of the zerg, up to the huge battleships.
A lot of context for some of the story beats are lost because this is only the CG cinematics, not the in-game cutscenes that set-up the context for the missions that are before and after the cutscenes.
Nice, I've been looking forward to this!
Great to see the next installment of Starcraft on your channel.
Not to mention it but something tells me you have been enjoying the gaming cinematics as of late, remembering the Wilhelm scream on que says enough, even just the intro to the video and you were already excited to see more. This is what gaming is, we see the story & crave to interact / be part of the adventure as it unfolds while we play along.
Truly a joy watching your reactions & getting your professional input from a cinematographer point of view.
Hahaha the Wilhelm scream ALWAYS gets my respect & attention, it has been used everywhere (more than most people would notice), literary everywhere at this point & its a beautiful sound piece to hear, even in gaming cinematics & in-game play. Love the use of it as a sort of nod of respect for the old-school film creators of our generation & what was accomplished in the earlier days.
love these two starcraft 2 videos and I look forward to see the last part!
There it is! Subbed last week after seeing the first one and wished for the rest
Yeah! I've been looking forward to this one!
really glad youre keeping this up, youre really shaping out to be a personal favorite kinda content maker o7
Thank you so much for that comment, it made my day. I'm also glad to hear you're enjoying the videos. Wicked!
Same here, I always look forward to your posts!
Like Jim, Kerrigan has a whole bridge crew of characters, but they're all Zerg monsters with their own perspectives and personalities, and they have as much importance as characters like Matt and Tychus in Wings of Liberty, but they don't appear in any of these prerendered cutscenes.
Damnit. In the first one you watched the missions cutscenes as well, not just the pre-rendered cutscenes. You're missing a shitton of story and details.
I had a look after making this video, the guy or girl who put this together (link in description) felt it wasn't part of it I guess. I saw it was a lot of talking over shoulder shots. The silver lining however is when I play the game myself, I've still got some nice new content for me to enjoy. Thank you for watching the video.
@@kaizammit and you will get so much more satisfaction. It won't propel it to become your favourite part of the trilogy, but it will switch from 'revenge story' addon to 'deepseated reclamation of one's own power at the expense of one's own identity'. It's a satisfying arc for Kerrigan.
Was waiting for this video
one thing i particularly love that you'd brought up about the cinematic at 10:00 is that she's wrestling with this 'inner demon', and a literal demon (why else would it have horns?) steps out of the shadows to confront/comfort her.
Plot synopsis to stitch these scenes together:
At the end of Wings of Liberty, Raynor, with Valerian's help, uses the Xel'naga artifact that he's been recovering parts of throughout the campaign (which turns out to be able to draw in and then release large amounts of psionic energy in a way which destroys and neutralizes zerg through their hive-mind) to defeat Kerrigan and de-zerg her (at least mostly)
At the start of Heart of the Swarm, Valerian is trying to figure out how much zerginess is left in her to be sure the process worked (turns out she can still control zerg, building a simple base and doing a cheeky little containment breach to punish his hubris is the tutorial mission of the campaign), Jim is getting impatient, and then Arcturus sends the fleet and tactical squads, led by Nova (his top assassin who was supposed to be the main character of an FPS set in the setting, but went to dev-hell and got shelved but she got all her tie-ins left in and got a mini campaign later) to kill them all.
Raynor and Kerrigan work at escaping the facility, but are split up by a bridge getting blown up before they reach the shuttle bay. Kerrigan can get to it, Jim can't. Cutscene happens on the bridge of the command ship, and she goes and yoinks an uncontrolled brood of zerg down on a nearby planet to clear the Dominion's anti-orbital installation that they set up to take out any ships that might return for survivors. Meantime, Jim has been "killed" by Nova. After that first real mission Kerrigan finds this out and goes to find the tools of her revenge...
In this cutscene order it looks like she goes to Kaldir first. It's an icy moon, there are protoss there, but she thinks also a zerg brood she could make use of. She finds a Leviathan (That H U G E zerg thing the Viking fighter/walkers were missiling in the opening cutscene that then dropped all those fleshy drop pods that we follow one of to the surface there) which she makes into her base of operations, and then heads planetside to find the brood and its leader so she can start rebuilding the swarm. She can't find the leader, turns out the leader's dead, and she fights a bunch of protoss to make sure they can't call their homeworld to come smack her with an absurdly huge fleet, then escapes. I'm surprised they didn't include the cutscene where she lands in the Leviathan here, but nothing else very story relevant happens on Kaldir (I'm including Niadra in that, she never really matters again, it's sad).
While traveling to her next destination, Zeratul (the long-winded protoss guy) shows up to be spooky and give information, as in the cutscene where she throws him around and stuff.
Kerrigan and her recovered brood now head to Char, the finale-mission volcanic planet from Wings of Liberty. Warfield is still in control of it, but she wants to recover her strongest Brood Mother (leader of a brood), who seems to have gone rogue and proclaims herself leader of the Swarm. Kerrigan fights said Brood Mother, name of Zagara, and eventually recruits her and starts to teach her to be a better commander. They both turn their attention to Warfield, who wants to wipe them out and is bringing his full arsenal online...
A fight with some gigantic starships and several nuclear bombs ensues, and Kerrigan breaks through to Warfield. Cue the cutscene where he manages to make slowly bleeding out with a metal beam through his abdomen and then getting killed look badass.
Kerrigan then follows up on Zeratul's spookiness and goes to Zerus. She gets some snacks for a kaiju, takes a bath, comes out purple (as shown in the cutscene), meets a nomadic primal zerg critter named Dehaka, and then eats a bunch of big monsters to absorb their power, including the kaiju she gave snacks to earlier and who put her up to all this in hopes of eating her instead. Dehaka thinks this is great, Kerrigan thinks him thinking that is great, so she takes him (and his pack) along with her.
Kerrigan then meets a really cool character from Brood War, Vice Admiral Alexi Stukov (now in zerg flavor) who has NOT had a great time in the interceding years, and he tells her about Amon and the Protoss/Zerg hybrid in a particular facility, overseen by a researcher you briefly meet in Wings of Liberty named Emil Narud. Narud also turns out to be Samir Duran from Brood War, who at the time Kerrigan had thought was one an infested terran sleeper agent inherited from the Overmind, but he was not and had his own agenda. Turns out it was making a bunch of apocalyptic monsters in service to a dead god (which Zeratul found out in Brood War but everyone else is just learning now), but that dead god works on "that is not dead which may eternal lie, for in strange aeons even death may die" rules, so he's coming back. Kerrigan and Stukov trash the lab, then Kerrigan fights Narud, who turns out to be a shapeshifter made(?) by said dead god, explaining the "disguising himself as Raynor and pre-infestation Kerrigan" thing he does in the cutscene to make Kerrigan confused and upset.
Raynor's crew has learned that Raynor is alive, tells Kerrigan, then goes and grabs a dude they left with a "friend" of theirs (by blowing up her mercenaries, stealing her money, and breaking her stuff when she refuses to give it back) so that they can find out where Raynor is being held. Kerrigan then goes to that prison ship, trashes the place, and frees Jim in a cutscene, as seen.
Everyone with a mouth (as in not the protoss) then goes to Korhal, the Dominion throneworld, to fight big bad guy Arcturus Mengsk. Lots of giant battles with low-to-no civilian casualties apparently because Raynor and Valerian's people help evacuate the city ahead of time, and then we get the final cutscene as Kerrigan goes to re-strengthen the swarm and do research in preparation for Legacy of the Void...
YESSSS!! AFTER THREE WEEKS OR EVEN MORE!
Can't wait to see it!
The one thing I love is that Jim has kept his sidearm at all times ready to kill Arcturus. But when the time came he realized that he was hurt far less by Arcturus than Sarah was, and he let her deal with him instead.
Love this!
More so than WoL, HotS really need you to see the in-game cutscenes to fully grasp what is happening, as there are huge chunks of the story that went on between the cinematics.
i'll never forget that BlizzCon lore panel many years ago, where Chris Metzen discribed "his boy Raynor" as "in a universe full of demi-gods he's just a dude walking around."
I find it very impressive how well you grasp the story for someone experiencing it for the first time.
I did not enjoy those stories when I was younger, I was being too critical to really get into it, but watching you enjoy them has really reminded me how much I've changed while making me quite happy that this game was so good! Keep up the good work!
Thank you for watching fella!
What's important to notice about the 3 Starcraft 2 Games is that each game centers around one of the 3 playable races
Wings of Liberty focussed on the Terrans (Humans) which is why we follow Jim Raynor through that and see him achieve his goal of saving his love, Sarah Kerrigan
Heart of the Swarm focusses around the Zerg and their Queen, which is why she is the central character of the story and Jim doesn't take the main focus - yet being a very important character since he is the love of her life and basically "the main character" of Starcraft alltogether.
Legacy of the Void did focuse around Zeratul (the Raziel type of character) and his people - the Protoss is what their race is called - yet it also culminates the story so we will defo see our 2 lovebird characters there again aswell ofc :)
Looking forward to Legacy of the Void! Another fun video. :)
So, with StarCraft 1, it had all three factions' stories in one game. What they did with StarCraft 2 was that they released each faction's stories separately. So, Wings of Liberty was when you were playing as the Terrans, Heart of the Swarm was you playing as the Zerg, and Legacy of the Void was you playing as the Protos. And, yes, it was all one story in the end, and the other factions are present in each arc, each game is focused on their own faction's part of the narrative.
Already looking forward to the Legacy of the Void Reaction. Thank you for checking these out!
Love ya work man!!!
Thank you so much and thank you for watching the video, it means a lot!
I havent seen the one where Jim and Sarah get out in ages, my god the eyes in that are killer, all the emotions with just the sublest changes
One of the scrapped/leaked endings which Blizzard changed for release was revealed that Mengsk had a whole Ghost Kerrigan program (clones and all, not the artifact from Wings of Liberty ) that was linked to Narud (started from BroodWar/ SC1 with Narud , Kerigan, Arcturus, Raynor and Zeratul) - hence why when she battled Narud in the scene before ending he took the apparence of Kerigan as a ghost.
Been loving these. I also have a soft spot for Wings of Liberty. Cant wait to see what you have to say about Legacy of the Void.
27:00
One of the most satisfying deaths/moments in gaming. We waited FIFTEEN YEARS for that, and by God it was so worth the wait.
basically they had had super minor teasers at parts of SC1 about the Xelnaga coming back (beings that travel between universes creating life and then moving on when their creations reach a certain stage) SC2 started building up to it with Zeratul going around trying to find out what would happen when they came back and trying to prepare the factions for worst case scenarios.
As a big fan of the Starcraft franchise it is always great to see others be engaged into something I also love.
It is totally understandable how you felt the arc for the HotS is much 'simpler' compared to the first expansion, my headcanon explanation to this is due to the nature of zerg being an army of mindless creatures all serving one great mind(kerrigan), I feel like having a goal and simply going all in to fulfill it gives a more 'zergy vibe' to the story.
absolutely loved these games growing up that last part with kerrigan and jim actually shed a tear god those were the good times
"My pleasure darling.... Always was..." - still my 2 favourite lines in gaming
That opening cinematic is beautiful
I was waiting so much for this! Especially for the ending. I am happy that it gave you watery eyes too!
I believe that watching only the videos, without the in game cut scenes, gives a bit of a wrong impression.
Heart of the Swarm is very well written. There are no big jumps in ideas, everything is planted carefully in advance. Why Jim returned, why Kerrigan transformed, etc.
Kerrigan is a complex character, that shows her "human" half much more in the missing cutscenes.
e.g. She is sacrificing the swarm or delaying some actions to save innocent people.
Also, if you play the game, you understand that this is not just a revenge story.
Amon is a much greater enemy, you build up Kerrigan for facing him. Killing Mengsk is just a bonus 😀
To what Jim said when Kerrigan freed him, "Tell that to Fenix! Tell that to the millions you butchered!" and when Kerrigan stated "You swore you'd kill the Queen of Blades." Fenix was a protoss warrior who was badly wounded by the zerg, but was placed in a life support system inside a war machine called a Dragoon so he could keep fighting. He became very close friends with Raynor, even saying that he could still "throw down with the best of them." and he highly respected Raynor for his fighting skills, where most protoss viewed humans as inferior at the time. When an invasion force of humans from Earth attacked, the humans, zerg and protoss united to fight them off, and Kerrigan manipulated them to take control of the Zerg Swarm, and killed Fenix for his final death after she betrayed them. It was because of this that Raynor swore he'd kill her, but in the four years between that game and Wings of Liberty, his heart had somewhat softened. She just reopened old wounds.
Yes thank you !
When she goes after Valerian for leaving Raynor behind it would've been triggering on multiple levels. Basically a repeat of what happened to her (somewhat) and it's another Mengsk doing it.
From a series of missions in WoL, Zeratul (the Raziel-guy) and Raynor are aware that Kerrigan needs to stay alive. Even if he wanted to kill primal Kerrigan when she freed him, he'd be damning literally everything else if he did so. Were it not for that, there's a good chance he would've domed her right there.
The mission chain is Whispers of Doom -> A Sinister Turn -> Echoes of the Future -> In Utter Darkness if you want to look them up (from Wings of Liberty).
Basically two of the characters most intimately familiar with her atrocities are stuck trying to keep her alive and make her powerful enough to deal with what's coming.
Narud/Duran takes a lot of explaining, but the short version is he's been creating zerg-protoss hybrids behind the scenes and he used to help zerg Kerrigan in the first game iirc. Also hard to talk about him without saying much about LotV. Basically everything about the guy is seen in the game proper rather than cutscenes
30:49 while i love the amount of narrative through line and continuity they have managed to maintain all the way to the end to legacy of the void, something that Wol, HotS, and LotV all kind of failed to do leading up to the end was show the idea that they are stories getting 3 key players into position to make the end of the story happen. ( functionally all 3 factions have a oppressively strict dictator over them that needs to be severed so that the final bad cant control everyone involved.)
Glad you enjoyed the cinematics!
Couple fun facts and/or addition info about the HOTS story:
Its possible to get Kerrigan to transform back into her zerg form before you do the missions on Char which culminate with the cinematic where she kills the general. If you do, her model is actually the zerg model and not her human ghost armor form.
The mission that leads to the cutscene with the false new story about Raynor's execution has Kerrigan taking control of a zerg colony and wiping out the local dominion, which is how she runs into the zerg in general again, but also why that one Zergling with the broken tusk shows up on her dropship. He survives the entire campaign as far as I know. Just chilling next to Kerrigans throne in her Leviathan.
Unfortunately, Broken Horn's canon ending is pretty sad. Check out the short story "Operation Blind Devil"
A lot of the storytelling on this campaign was told via in mission dialog. Gameplay is you controlling the zerg, lots of using them to gain power at the cost of becoming a monster, but there's a handful of great humanizing moments. (One of my favorites is where Valarian convinces her to slow her attack on the capital to give civilians time to evacuate even though it allows Mensk to prepare for the attack) Also Tycus does not make any future appearances.
The battle cruiser falling down is bone chilling 😂... That's a hundred thousand casualties at the very least ...
in the first game you play as terrans (humans), or more precisely Raynor's faction.
Here in heart of the swarm you play as zerg, with Kerrigan caling the shots.
and in legacy of the void you play as protoss.
for additional context keep in mind that Raynor, Kerrigan, Zeratul, Mengst and even that shapeshifting Narud guy were established characters in Starcraft 1. For example, that CGI scene where Kerrigan gets left behind by Mengst on New Gettysberg that is a flashback to game 1.
always was ... that hits some of us more now than when we first played it
Love this. :)
Hell, its about time
I can't wait for the last part
Glad that you watched it! I can imagine there must be a lot of gaps in the story after watching this particular video. The context could be understood better by watching some of the in-game cinematics as well, but I also understand, that it'll be too long for a video.
According to the book "Flashpoint" the smoking corpse of Tychus Findlay was left on the planet Char after Jim Raynor shot him. Despite the fact that I personally liked his character, I think this is a good story decision, because if he had been brought back to life, that would have removed the stakes and it could have been turned into something like disney star wars (a.k.a. anyone who dies can be resurrected for convenience, which is pretty boring stuff).
In the first Starcraft game Jim and Sarah made a pretty good team together, which helped Arcturus Mengsk to overthrow the Terran Confederacy, and found the Dominion. Mengsk was a pretty well written antagonist, because he could persuade anybody to follow him (or as it is written in the book "Liberty's Crusade": he could push the right buttons in anybody's mind). Unfortunately Starcraft 2 diminished his character a bit, as it did the same with Jim Raynor, which is a bit of a shame. If you have time, you may watch the storyline of Starcraft and Brood war. Unfortunately those don't have such spectacular cinematics, because they were made in 1998. They are mostly dialogues, but there are some pretty great lines (like Kerrigan being the Queen B!tch of the Universe).
If you keep going on with the story, I highly recommend to watch "Reclamation". This video is about the self doubt of Artanis, the Hierarch of the Daeleam (the Templars of the Protoss race), who is about to send thousands of Protoss into their deaths. There are some Protoss history in that video, which you may find interesting.
6:16 - You can see her eyes turn amber as she becomes determined! Normally her eyes are a different colour.
And yes you are correct, this "test" is the introduction and tutorial. They release a Drone (builder unit) and tell Kerrigan to control it. She does, and they tell her to harvest resources, build a building, etc. Basic Game Tutorial stuff. But she also start to train combat units against the orders of the crew and she use it to rush into an adjacent chamber and wreck havoc. Don't think there' are any casulties but she does this to prove a point, that the Zerg cannot be controlled.. It will spread and cause destruction even if they want to try to harness the creatures for their own warfare (or find a way to combat them).
The amber psychic powers are her corrupted mind.
The purple psychic powers are Kerrigan reborn.
The Zerg Campaign is one of my favorites couse there's so much to do between missions, for example u can talk to your living ship's avatar and some of the other Zerg companions she gathers on her journey.
About Legacy of the Void, its all about the Protoss and the finale of the trilogy so i thought u might want a small primer on them.
The protoss are a psychic race, doing everything using their mind powers, even the blades they use in battle are manifestations of their mind.
In the campaign they are trying to retake their homewold that was conquered by the Zerg and their Overmind in Starcraft 1 though things go differently then they thought and u go on a journey to unite the different Protoss factions for the final fight against Amon that has begun.
Hope this helps without spoiling anything!
To answer the question about who/what is Narud, it requires a bit of knowledge on the setting. A long time ago their existed a race of super powerful beings, almost gods in their own right, called the Xel'Naga, one of their artifacts is used to 'cure' kerrigan in the first game, the big blue glowing crystal thing, and it's also the same one that Mengsk uses during their confrontation in his office.
The Xel'Naga died, or went into cryosleep/hibernation. Amon is one of them, although where the rest of his species sought to bring life, he wishes to end it all. Wipe the slate clean basically, to remake everything in his image and to worship him. (I could be a bit wrong, it's been awhile since I last played, I think there's also an aspect of 'Wanting to bring order' in his motivations as well.)
Amon is asleep, or partially dead, and can't act overtly, so he has followers doing the work for him, one of them is Narud, I don't think we ever actually learn *what* he is, if he was originally a human or not, but he is essentially Amon's right hand, a shapeshifter with psionic powers similar to what Kerrigan has.
It should be noted that in the first game, Kerrigan and by extension the zerg followed him, as when Kerrigan was corrupted into her zerg form, she was also brainwashed by Amon, however the artifact got her mind back.
As for the story that the scenes here miss, Kerrigan does eventually end up leading the swarm again, however her powers are abysmal compared to how she was before. Zeratul tells her to go to Zerus, the zerg homeworld to evolve as the zerg have, where she eventually takes on the zerg form once more, along with the massive power boost it provides, but with her mind her own this time.
She does this not only to help her get revenge, but also because it is her destiny to fight Amon, before he can enact his plan of destroying everything.
HotS gives the player real motivation to continue with the character, Raynor's death hits the player almost as hard as Kerrigan, and you empathize with his desire for revenge. Her path through redemption and revenge is really powerful from a narrative standpoint, because at first she saw the swarm as a tool, but she quickly developed a strong character as the new queen (compared to her old form), not by her power, but by the perception that other characters have about her (such as Zagara who respects and admires her, or Isha who was her confidant, or Abathur who sees her as his goal of perfection), and by how she integrates into this powerful being her most human and pious side.
PD:I am already expecting the "Legacy of the Void" video, I think is was the game of this serie with the most powerful hook.
Loved the breakdown. Can't wait until you review LOTV!
My favorite part of these videos is that you watch the cinematics, really enjoy them, but can still analyze them critically rather than as some stary-eyed fan boy who loves it for no better reason than it's Starcraft.
My fav to play!! All hail the Queen of Blades!!!
It just occurred to me that no matter what happens, that little box on Raynor's shoulder never falls out. XD
Don't know if it's been mentioned, but remember Zeratul's scene in WOL : 'You will hold her life in your hands etc....' So whatever happens, we knew she wouldn't die, especially not by Jim, until the end of the Starcraft story.
Tricia Helfer as Kerrigan really adds a ton of spice into these cinematics
16:05 - "Seen a dog, that looked like a dragon"
There are many units to the Zerg. Anything from the common dogs you saw to Ranged attackers, Overlords that help keep the Zerg mindcontrolled, and even their buildings are Biological and alive. They are also very fast to adapt and change based on their DNA. In the game there is a character that "spins the threads" and lets the player enhance units in different ways (more armor, longer range, faster movement, etc) between maps.
The Basic version is the dog that we saw in her ship. It is very cheap to build and you create two of them instead of one and they are called Zerglings. If you've ever heard the term that someone Zergs a place, that's the unit they use. Early in the game they create a literall swarm of those small dog-looking creatures (because it's the first unit a Zerg player can create, they are cheap, fast to make and you get two per trained unit.
Ngl i love seeing you react to SC2 tho after watching the cinematics from Legacy of the Void i think it would be great to see you either watch a full story type of video that shows the in-game story as well or play it yourself.
kai zammit. do a time stamp for the intro and the reaction seperatly. increases viewer comfort a ton.
I hope you do Legacy of the Void as well, SC2 is one of the greatest stories in video games
20:15 she did evolve back into the Queen of Blades, but this form is an uncorrupted version. Without the constant whispers of the dark one Amon like the last time she was infested.
i really recommend watching starcraft 1 cutscenes, in starcraft 1 there are some special cutscenes and dialogs that already hinted at the things happening in SC2
kinda saddened since we dont get to see a lot of Kerrigan's crew. would love for dehaka, stukov, zagara and abathur to all have made at least an appearance, they add a nice layer of world building without deviating from the story.
The character Narud turns into after Jim is her. Sarah Kerrigan, from the original game and before infested by the Zerg. (referencing the New Gettysburg cinematic from the first game)
PS I love how you can see raynor deploy his "anti nuke" helmet at 26:54 he knew what was coming up
Can't wait to see "MY LIFE... FOR AIUR!" moment in the LotV cutscenes.
There's so much more story in the small cutscenes in HOTS than WoL. This means that you miss out on a lot of bits like her regaining control of the zerg, remaking the swarm, her journey on Zerus to transform and the journey towards Mengsk. Some of these cinematics have a lot of time between them