SC2Mapster

In reply to hypernova2002:

 Yeah I agree. It adds a level of atmosphere of being completely outmatched, which can be good, but unfortunately this campaign conflates cheap gimmicks with valuable challenge. It's not difficulty when the game surprises you with enemies coming from a random direction, softlocking you 30 minutes into a mission because you lost too many units early on, intentionally avoiding your hero units to target the squishy infantry you need for an objective, or simply failing to have basic macro capability since you can't produce more supply structures (Mission 5). I had to cheese and exploit every single mission I played except for Mission 4 which was just a plain old kill everything map.

The campaign is branded as being for SC2 veterans and completionists of Hard or Brutal campaign, but it feels more like just cheap shots and sabotaging the player on purpose as opposed to presenting a situation with a fair challenge. Big turnoff but I'm seeing it through anyway for the story.

If the rest of the missions are like the first, it looks like this campaign is going to be dependent on save-scumming your way to victory after every few fights. Use MANUAL SAVES and don't overwrite any of them or you might screw yourself over at a crucial point in the mission and make it impossible to progress, since there are also no checkpoints at all, which I think is necessary in a campaign. It handles difficulty in a rather gimmicky way, throwing cheap shots meant to sabotage you, or blindsiding you with a softlock because you lost too many units earlier on. Some difficulty mechanics or elements of mission design tend to not add anything fun and are made with the intention of the player being fully cognizant of what to expect. As it turns out I am not psychic, and thus had to save-scum numerous times to achieve the desired result. I will say they are very inventive, though.

I have created a review thread where I'll be posting detailed feedback and strategies as I find them for each mission, if anyone wants to check it out. Looks like I'm going to be sucker punched quite a few times in this campaign, so hopefully I can save someone the trouble by warning them ahead of time.