Has some good ideas but is bogged down by what I think is a purposefully large amount of jank that obsidian inserted into the game to replicate the feeing of older crpgs. My biggest gripes with the game were that the game was pretty buggy, and that loading times were excessively long. There was also WAY too much combat for a crpg; maps are filled with enemy encounters and despite the combat system being pretty okay, about half way through it just felt like going though the motions. It didn’t help that both expansions are combat focused. Other then that, both the story and the companions were well written even if some of them had really short quests.

I tolerated WINGS OF LIBERTY and managed my disappointment for it well enough, but I genuinely hate this game. I cannot think of a major triple-A game, let alone a sequel to a legendary title, that has writing and storytelling this cliched, clumsy, and inert. It makes RESIDENT EVIL 6 look like fucking DISCO ELYSIUM. Even setting aside how bad of a sequel this is (it honestly might as well take place in another universe than the first), just the characterization and plot beats are so fucking predictable and boring and asinine and UNEARNED. It feels like fanfiction written by a junior high school student.

If you had told me in 2000 that STARCRAFT would have three infinite-budget sequels with thirty missions apiece comprising one mega-game, and THE ENTIRETY of the story of it would be concerned with the UNDYING LOVE of Kerrigan and Raynor, who IT'S NOT EVEN CLEAR WERE A THING BEYOND FLIRTING in the first game, I probably would have firebombed Blizzard's offices sometime between then and 2010.

I CANNOT believe that they did a SECOND WHOLE GAME with them pining for each other and trying to save and redeeeeeemmmmmm each other. That's the WHOLE THING, for TWENTY HOURS. AGAIN. Oh, sorry, that and Kerrigan wants to kill Mengsk. She says it at the beginning, and then in every subsequent mission, and then at the end she does it, with no plot twists or variations of any kind. That's the whole thing. And it's THIRTY FUCKING MISSIONS.

No interesting characters. Zero. The clumsiest possible nods to the original game. Embarrassing art design. Embarrassing voice acting. Silly-ass missions with health-bar boss fights. The lamest, most wannabe-MASS EFFECT-ass 'crew' interactions (with fuckin Zerg bugs!!!! So stupid!!!).

I was dreading this a bit given the last one and because I've never cared too much for the Zerg and always considered Kerrigan somewhat tiresome, but jeSUS I did not think it was gonna be this fucking dull. And insulting!

Trash. Close the company. Apologize.

(3/10 because the gameplay is still good, lol)

Song of Saya is a great visual novel: compelling and horrifying yet emotionally resonant. An excellently-written, mature story that handles its subject matter so well that it managed to make even the worst fucking thing imaginable pretty and sympathetic. There are sex scenes, yes, but they're not there to cheapen the story with waifu bullshit, or 'reward' the player. Much like its other elements, Song of Saya masterfully weaves eroticism into the tale without letting it fall to plain old titillation. Everything was well done: mystery, horror, a bit of biological philosophy... and love.

It's worth getting all three endings as it's not a long read, and there are only three choices to make in the entire story - this isn't a very player-driven VN. In my opinion, that's a good thing, as it's entertaining enough to just let it play out. Cozy up, lie back, press the Auto button and enjoy a story that's touching and depraved. This is one VN that's as worth your time reading as any book.

For most video game franchises it takes two or three entries to flesh out the formula, and this is especially often the case with those that started back in the DOS era. But HoMM incredibly plays today as fresh as it did back then. Most of the changes in the sequels are quality of life improvements and expansions of the ideas introduced here, but the core gameplay is the same. This game is very addictive, easy to pick up and hard to put down.

If you've never heard of HoMM, in this game you own a city where you can construct buildings and recruit armies, and then you gotta take over all the resources and other cities on the map. The battles are turn-based, as is the rest of the game.

I'm not a huge fan of campaigns in such games because they feel like an arbitrary set of tasks that limits the freedom of your gameplay, and they don't tend to have a good story either. In fact I would advise against the campaign here. It does have some interesting scenarios, but they can often drag out because you didn't complete that one specific task even if you've murdered everyone on the map. And the tasks may sometimes be unclear. It's much better to start a standard game and customize it to your liking.

I think the one area where the game feels most dated is the graphics. They have their own charm and certain landscapes are quite pretty, but the character sprites look extremely goofy. You do get used to it though, as the gameplay overshadows its visuals. When you can finally recruit those purple dragons that can incinerate two enemies in a single attack, you're gonna think they're badass regardless of how they appear on the first glance.

The music, on the other hand, is still very good by today's standards. Of course it's gonna get eclipsed in the future by the godly music of the third game, but it's still one of the best soundtracks you'll hear in any game ever. If only the visuals could match the atmosphere that the music establishes.

This game's biggest flaw is that it does not respect the player's time. The animations in battle are pretty slow and cannot be sped up. And there's no auto-resolve button, as far as I can tell. There is a button called "auto", but I think it just makes the AI play the battle for you in real-time. Another thing I disliked here is that you can sometimes pick up artifacts with negative bonuses, and you can't throw them away. And, as far as I can tell, there's no way to determine whether the artifact is negative before you pick it up. Also, the interface in the cities is a little unintuitive. Though you do get used to it, it can get pretty annoying in the late-game when the pressure is high.

There are a couple of things that are neither good nor bad imo. For example, the magic system here is somewhat different from HoMM3, as your spells are like expendable items. Another example is how the battlefields have much less space to maneuver, but that also means it's easy to create a wall of melee soldiers around your archer, which can help if the enemy has no ranged units. This leads to a different strategic approach, but does not make the game worse or anything. Of course this does make it slightly less balanced, and the HoMM series has always had balance problems. And here the balancing is probably at its most unhinged. But honestly, at this point this is more of a feature than a bug. Once you get acquainted with the game, you start enjoying how certain factions and units are more/less powerful than the others, as this makes them more unique and realistic. After all, you can always tweak the difficulty or increase/reduce the number of opponents.

In the end though, I'd say after a few hours of gameplay you start feeling like you've seen everything the game has to offer, and it does start feeling a little tedious. There isn't a lot of content here, and I imagine this was perfectly fine for 1995, but the following entries in the series kinda make this one obsolete. However, if you can get this game on portable devices, I think it can work as a nice little time-killer. And having less complexity would serve it better in this case. I think I'll try to install it on my PS Vita in the future.

The best example of gameplay loops I can think of. A very relaxing game when played in isolation, the loop of exploration > rewards > level > clear enemy camps > items > conquer > explore is genius in simplicity and multifaceted in execution, and all the factions offer at least one good reason to play them. Add in some depth in regards to what heroes, upgrades, build orders, etc. are necessary for matchups and maps and you get a very simple to understand yet intricately mechanical strategy game, which is the best you can ask for. HOTA is a much welcome expansion, seamlessly integrating with the base game, at this point it's pretty much a stark upgrade over the base game, though balance is still inherently wonky.