The campaigns actually had two difficulties. The first, for average players, and the second, for players that bring up the chat window and type "power overwhelming".

Hello! I am David from the interview. I would like to apologize for the beginning portion of the interview. I was a little nervous and excited to talk about one of my favorite games. I went into the interview completely blind. I didn't know what questions would be asked of me, save for a few general ideas. This was not the entire interview. The entire interview lasted for close to half an hour. This caused me to stumble over my words. However, I do think that I recovered and did pretty well for the second half. If you have any questions, comments, or criticisms, I would love to hear them. Thank you. Lastly, I want to thank Mr. Gervais for having me and for talking about a game that I love.

"what anime did that guy get fired from to wide up in a game like starcraft 2 anyway" the burns lol

"I'm terrible, let's do this" is my new personal motto.

Something no one seems to talk about with Blizzard games is the box art. Every memory I have of going to Wal Mart, Target, or Best Buy as a kid includes the Starcraft box and the enormous 3 box bundle of Diablo games. I genuinely think its a big part of those games' enduring popularity, the embossed faces and giant text were impossible to ignore. It might also be because not a lot of PC games had as much mainstream appeal, and PC games came in those gigantic boxes so they'd always catch your eye in the electronics aisle.

The first Starcraft didn't have difficulty options but it did allow you to change the game speed. I was able to beat the harder missions by setting the game to a slower speed so I could micro better.

In regards to the revelations about the Zerg and Kerrigan; Metzen has a redemption fetish. He has used "villain gains redemption" as a plot twist in damn near every thing he's ever done. WoW does it multiple times!

Well, now I want a Command & Conquer retrospective. Can we have it? Pretty please?

"For people who are bad at Starcraft" Aw shucks, you didn't have to make a video just for me.

I remember getting Starcraft in the clearance section at walmart. I think I was about 7 when I got it, though. So all the story went right over my head. So I couldn't tell you a single event that happened in the game... but it was fun!

I've played this game for like a million hours and I still watched the whole video. it's that good. you have a clear voice and speak articulately, and there's something about that old footage of you trying to move marines to build a bunker that just tugs on my nostalgia flaps

I would come home late on weekends at college to see my roomie and his friend going at it with Starcraft. Roomie would play Terran usually, but would get too turtled. His friend...Dude would play Protoss like Zerg...was insane to watch. He'd usually win. Best thing ever was the sound of the ding when you make a carrier and it was under 2 minutes in the game still, roomie was like "Nuuuuuuu IMPOSSIBLE!" Good times.

"Starcraft II is a deep fried ball of gourmet cheese" dis dood know deductive logic.

Will we get a retrospective of S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Metro, if you've played them? Same goes for XCOM.

I'm (South) Korean, and I suck at StarCraft. Yeah. So I need this video, thanks.

It's interesting to me that you embrace the cheesy presentation of SC2 so much. While they deliver the cheesy dialogue and characterization with plenty of zest, I did feel somewhat let down by comparison to the more subtle approach to dialogue/voice acting found in SC1. Perhaps it was merely a result of the conversations being so LONG in SC/BW (dialogue was the ONLY means of advancing the plot, after all) but the people felt more genuine, and as a result, so did the friendships, hatreds, tenuous alliances, and countless betrayals. In SC2, the Korprulu denizens I had come to love were reduced to caricatures of themselves. Zeratul in particular is a nonstop fount of cryptic, hyperbolic, mystical goobledygook that seems as though it was written more to sound good in a trailer than actually function in conversation. As you point out, it's pretty self-aware, and both styles work after a fashion in isolation, but there's some dissonance for me when making the transition from 90s StarCraft to 2010s StarCraft. Anywho, I'm loving your channel. Keep it up!

I'm glad Raynor got to finally lose his V-card, even if it took an apocalypse or two.

Always a pleasure watching (well, podcasting) your videos.

I don't even play Starcraft yet I sat through this all and listened intently. Bravo

The campaigns in SC1 actually does have a difficulty select of sorts: changing the game speed. All this does is give you more time to consider action and makes playing the game a bit easier

This was an incredibly impressive video, both in its impressively coherent long-form writing and in its depth as it dives into the subject matter. Hats off to you.

Every time you make a video I can't help but think about the amount of work you put into it. I always enjoy your quality content.

I don't know if you got a new mic or changed your sound mixing or something, but the audio in this video is a huge improvement. It sounds freaking great!

Your presentation and speech are excellent, a lot of other game review channels could learn from you. I think this is the first hour-long self-made KZfaq video I've ever sat through and enjoyed all the way to the end!

I've often wondered about Noah's perspective on Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, since they seem very impactful influences on Warcraft and Starcraft respectively.

Great video as always! As a huge Starcraft fan for both the single and multi player, I really liked seeing the story get some analytical love.

I have incredibly found memories of playing the original Starcraft games when I was little. Granted, I played them with the cheat codes on but I found them incredibly absorbing none the less. They also counted as the first games I ever played where I was absorbed by a narrative, everything from the presentation and characters to the cinematics (which were mind blowing to me at the time). Even though I'll probably never touch the sequels, you did an awesome job at examining the series as a whole. Keep up the fantastic work, Noah!

Heart of the Swarm was my least favorite because of Kerrigan's character arc, which I found to be extremely weak. There are a number of missions where she commits the atrocities you've come to expect from the Queen of Blades -- such as massacring an entire Protoss expedition because they're in the way and then captures and tortures one of the survivors for information -- then spends the next dialogue sequence mewling about how "I had no choice" and "It's not my fault". They're trying to tell a very Vampire-esque story of someone torn between the power of their monstrous nature and the remains of their humanity, but don't put her in any situations where that dilemma is challenged. At almost every turn she could make different choices that would result in less gratuitous destruction and smack down her advisors to maintain her authority the way she always does should they question her. Her character comes off as childish, unwilling to take responsibility for her actions and deflecting it onto anyone she can, rather than the self-confident "Queen Bitch of the Universe" who, while completely evil and not particularly complex, was far more respectable as a character and a villain.

I loved StarCraft 1 for the online fan made maps. Playing through the various “Defense” games and random RPG style maps, cat and mouse games, mazes, and whatever else people could come up with were always a lot of fun even if I was terrible at the multiplayer battles.

Dude you seriously need more subscribers. These videos are great and I find myself watching them over and over.

Thank you, as always, for your incredible content! Godspeed, Noah!

Kerrigan should have sacrificed herself to kill Amon. The fact that she is still alive and with the power of a god annoys me too much.

"The Starcraft Retrospective For People Who Are Bad At Starcraft" You sure know how to make a gal feel special.

Noah you're the best. You're videos get better all the time! Keep up the great work!

Yay, another Noah Video! Keep up the great work

I love the idea of a retrospective for those of us with passing curiosity of the game and low skill. Has made me want to explore the series.

Awesome videos! Keep up the outstanding work you are doing!

Great video as always, and much improved audio. Nice job.

What an awesome video about Starcraft! It makes totaly clear that you have not to be ambitious to have fun with the game. And if your really can't pass the 20 apm mark or just refuse to use grid hotkeys (qwert, asdfg, yxcvb) there are also tons of enjoyable arcade maps to play. That i never saw a person playing a game so slow for such a long time and never heard that someone just couldn't beat the campagne in my nearly 18 years of starcaft made it even better =D. Great!

I'm curious, how long is a script for a video like this?

Excellent summary of the Campaign - good analysis, good commentary.

Awesome, im always happy to see you post!

That was such a great video, I watched the whole thing and loved it!!

I personally love the way Blizzard ended the cycle in LotV. Because at the end we don't really know if Raynor really got happy with Kerrigan or if that was an allucination of his inner self. In the film Romeo is Bleeding (Gary Oldman) we see something similar at the end, but we know the character of Gary Oldman got mad.

Great video, very insightful. I'm in the same boat, where I never really graduated from an amateur skill level, but this game is just as fun as it was for me 13 years ago (when I started playing brood war).

A video from Noah on my birthday? Pretty freaking sweet :)

Great review man. Right in the feels. Grew up playing Starcraft... Also loved Starcraft 2 especially the story and the lore. I only hope there'll be a Starcraft 3 one day. Really wanna know where Raynor and Kerrigan went.

You're the best, Noah. Keep up the amazing work.

That comment right there, from your friend near the end of the video, about SC II being stressful is the main reason I stopped playing. I started in high school, but even then I realized the amount of time I had to invest to just be good at the game was by far greater than the fun I was having. And that's coming from a lowly silver! I was watching streams, perfecting my timings, but I realized I wasn't having fun, only stress.

You deserve more subs, because you put so much into your work.

Starcraft review...Noah you just know what I want to see even I when I don't

As someone who prefers Brood War and high APM play, I think you did a great job explaining the appeal of Brood War, even though you don't personally like the game as much. Great work and a very professional video!

I think this was a really good analysis and I appreciate the video! I share your general opinion of the story arc and had a similar experience, following this game since I was really young. In my eyes, Brood War in particular remains the most perfect multiplayer game of all time and I still play it almost every single day.

The godfather of video essays🙌 how did i not find your channel until now?

I mostly like the story, but I was disappointed Kerrigan remained so fixated on Mengsk through Heart of the Swarm. By this point it's clear that there are bigger fish to fry - SC1 made it clear that Mengsk was a footnote in the epic conflict between Zerg and Protoss. Brood War built on that by having the UED clobber Mengsk and teasing the true threat through Duran. And WoL had put a large focus on fighting Mengsk as well. I have to imagine most players were well and truly ready to move on to Amon.

I'll be honest: I never though for a second I would watch this whole thing. Very well done indeed.

Amazingly engaging analysis and a proper love letter to the whole franchise. I applaud you, sir.

What an entertaining video. I love your voice, it's like listening to a news documentary on Al Jazeera

One of your best retrospectives yet, just as insightful as your earlier videos, only with much better production values ( the sound quality is so much better with your new mic ). Any chance you might tackle Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment at any point?

"Wings of Liberty is a deep-fried ball of gourmet cheese" - so watching the cutscenes is heart-attack inducing! Great video mate :)

Please PLEASE do a video on the No One Lives Forever games and the spinoff someday! Those games deserve to not be forgotten! :'(

Fantastic work as ever Noah. Small typo in the description, just so you know

This is a TRUE old school video 😊. Nice review of this legendary game

now all we need is the borderlands retrospective, a thorough look at xcom the entire franchise and all about the diablo universe. maybe as bonus do a genre video on the moba/arts ascension

I love the open-mindedness and awareness of how the game can appeal to different people in different ways

With all the new content now still being maintained but balance patches being suspended, it's interesting to see this retrospective again

As always, an excellent video!

Aw man, I would really love to see a retrospective for the Command&Conquer Series now.

ANOTHER GREAT VIDEO, Audio was great

Awesome video, thanks for the upload

As a hardcore starcraft 2 player and fan, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the video and appreciate your effort for making such a well rounded case and review of the game. However, I think the last 5 minutes where the multiplayer aspect of the game is discussed fails in correctly assesing the last SC2 expansion, Legacy Of The Void. I was a top master/low grandmaster player in the EU server (between the top 400-200 players in Europe) for a few years and I cannot agree less with your friend. I think Starcraft is a game that you enjoy and understand the more and better you get, so I do believe that most pros play this game because they find a personal kind of satisfaction and fulfillment that is very rare to explain. It´s one of those feelings you have to live to comprehend. Secondly, and most importantly, your friend´s opinion on there being more micro and similarities with Brood War I must say is not true at all (and I can understand his view as he is a casual player that does not delve into all the strategy and tactics this game offers). The game´s depth and variety has waned considerably due to a set of changes (ie. faster economy, more focus on worker harassment) that have radically shrinked a player´s ability to win based on strategic options and efficient moves. This was seen as showing the middle finger to many of the Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm fans like me that were for many months of Beta testing watching how our already declining in popularity game was being rapidly deteriorated by Blizzard´s multiplayer design team, who instead of listening to reasonable complaints by the professionals and casuals alike decided to keep going along with their flawed view on how the game should be changed. Long story short, the game is now at its worst state, with viewership and playerbase (and the number of progamers) heavily, heavily declining due to the implemented changes that proved to be more of a liability than an asset to the game. While it is true that Starcraft 2 will have its own niche and will most likely not fully disappear, it is for me the living example of what a videogame company and design team that wants to create a healthy E-sports title should not do. Having finished this, I cannot thank you enough for making this video. I´m subscribing.

Fellow terrible starcraft player here, I love hotkeys. I always hate the idea of wasting time issues orders when I could be saving convenience and just plain kicking more ass. While I am definitely gifted in the memory/fast learning department, I think most the hot keys make sense and aren't too hard to memorize, being relatively few in number. I've always found something empowering about "just push keys instead" and gaining that great leap in power. EDIT: I think I'd sharply disagree about the position of heart of the swarm. To me WoL stood out better as a stronger narrative and cinematic experience. HoTS was still by many means excellent, but it relied on characters (with the exception of Kerrigan) who had already had their depth and intricacies spelled out. All the characters you met in HOTS seemed to very often be driven almost entirely by function and extremely little through personality, if only because of their alien and aggressive nature. The exception to this is actually only Abathur. While he is still a pretty flat characters in history and motivations, he feels like a genuine artisan, and he has some brilliant philosophy that's stayed with me with how simple yet how true it is. I know there's always that one bit about "Perfection moving target. Cannot catch. Only chase.", which as a perfectionist I resonate with heavily. That being said, along with the mechanical and rigid characters that lacked relatability, something as simple as the way it hinted at research and objectives that just felt EXTREMELY anti 4th wall to me. "Quillgore biomass" is a joke I make sometimes to reference annoying, blatant objectives being shoved into your face. To me, wings of liberty and "getting samples for Steton's research" was completely logical and highly conducive to the 4th wall. HOTS was not so nice. HOTS did a great job with the zerg origin story though and I genuinely enjoyed a coupled of the things I saw. Roaches (AK47's with feet, as I often compare them to) I god damn love period. So getting to see a roach subspecies that went feral and bonded with microorganism symbiotically, gaining new powers? Cool as fucking hell. Watching primal zerg instantly just copy all the work, research, and refinement of the hivemind zerg swarm? Hilarious, but believably functional. And while I admit there are cheesy moments and aspects to WOL, from Tychus pushing "this big button with a skull on it" to all sorts of small shenanigans to backstories about marauder pilots in the armory, I think it did very well to encapsulate relatable motives, likeable characters, strong bonds and friendships, and a lot of the political atmosphere. For example, you jokingly say what Final Fantasy game Valarian came from, but I think he's a great example of what the identity of something "Royal" and "worthy of succession" would look like. Strong. Proud. Fearless and detached. Beautiful like some sort of God King waiting to be. He seemed to amount to the incredible amount of pressure and structure his life has been no doubt warped into, and it bleeds every inch of his character. No doubt fairly blunt, but a very strong identity that makes a great new acquaintance. His qualifications for being your ally were inalienable. Points like this kind of drag on, but I think the point is the same. WOL was more human, and it made it believable, relatable, but comedically inclined none the less. Heart of the swarm was pretty minimal on humor, and while it had moments of compelling drama (zergling pup sensing Kerrigan's discomfort) and better encapsulated gameplay, I don't think it was superior as a user experience, when multiplayer repercussions are cut from the considerations.

Are you going to do a video on Thief or Diablo by any chance?

Battle on the Amerigo is literally a homage to the Hive Battle scenes from Aliens.

Jebus, learn to use hotkeys, omg! Anyway amazing video, Starcraft as a francise will always have a place in my heart.

Great Video! Posted it on r/starcraft maybe the hardcore fans (as i am one) are enjoying the video as much as i did!

One of my favourite youtubers. please keep doing these

I really enjoyed hearing your perspective, even if, as a hardcore starcraft player some of the inaccuracies were a little grating. I especially loved hearing your support for Heart of the Swarm whose campaign I enjoyed immensely as well. I have to say though and I'm sure you are fully aware as you stated many times, your skill level severely hamstrings your insights on this series. Particularly how you glanced over the campaign of broodwar was disappointing, though understandable. That being said I am only let down because my expectations were so high given that phenomenal retrospective of Baldurs Gate. You have a real gift for analysis.

You could massively benefit from the use of Hotkeys. It spreads the load of clicking across more digets, its more efficient with mouse movements & allows you to be faster & devote more attention to more interesting parts of the game. Its more rewarding.

The "BMX bikes and Code Red" line had me chuckling. Partly because it's a funny mental picture, and partly because I too ride a BMX bike and drink Code Red. Do you plan on making a retrospective on the Diablo games in the future?

Personally I like hotkeys because they reduced the amount of clicking and moving the screen. Like hotkeying a specific group of units that you're using to attack, using the attack hotkey etc. It felt like it reduced the awkwardness of selecting the same group of units over and over again to attack while switching between your base and the battlefield. It also made having lots of units feel more elegant since you'd just use two keys to switch between your marines and firebats. Whenever I play a different RTS now like Age of Empires I miss a lot of the hotkeys.

24:15 I think you nailed it. SC2 gameplay was extraordinary, but the story/cinematics... I eventually concluded that Blizzard was pandering to a wider audience... but man... it was cringeworthy at several points. However, the game was so good and fun I just accepted it. Anyways, good stuff as always, I greatly enjoy your low key introductions and narrative style, and your ability to put my own mental inkings and previous reservations into words. Keep it up!

The ending slides are a framing device - if you remember, Wings of Liberty's original installer displayed a number of slides that gave you a quick recap of the previous game and set the stage for the events of SC2. And SC2 ends the same way it began before it even began - with slides wrapping up the story ;)

"No Epilogue to the Epilogue's Epilogue." Then the Nova missions happened...

Finally, a retrospective for me!

awesome piece. thank you.

I actually found Brood War not too hard, even though I'm nowhere near good enough to do well at multiplayer. The trick I used was to simply fortify in order to take minimal losses on enemy attacks and have time to build a sizable army. (Archons+shield batteries were very useful in episode 4.)

Where do you get the ideas for your intros? I know that, obv, they're really simple but their simplicity has so much character and...idk even "texture"(??). Excellent work and thank you for sharing 💯💜🙏

"...he was just an insufferable dick about it." That made me laugh.

Very good stuff!

If I remember correctly this was the first Noah video I watched. Got hooked. "For people who are bad at Starcraft"so it's aimed at me. It was and am really only ever interested in the game because of the art style and the space opera aspect and the way they manage to present this as an RTS was and still is really exciting. But I'm sooo bad at it, that I even find it almost offending that he calls the first Terran campaign a sort of tutorial :DD From the Big push onward, I suffer a lot, and I never managed to get through Z9 Yet I'm still very fond of this game

Ive just been rushing to build sattelite bases and upgraded carriers as the protoss for over 15 years at this point and i still have a blast every time i play

Thanks Noah, I think the one game that I really suck at is Empire Earth, there are so many aspects to balance in those games. I do agree though, that Starcraft was a well-designed game that I enjoyed, even though I am not even close to an expert at the games.

I'm glad you took this perspective to talk about this series I loved so much. Because I'm most likely a worse and slower player than you are. It was an embarrassment to play multiplayer.

Holy crap! Everything is explained, every single detail is explained about this game, in one single video. I never played multiplayer only skirmish games against AI and even then i had trouble beating it. Most of times used code to remove fog of war. xD

You mentioned that the theme was heavily influenced by "Alien", but it was actually influenced by Games Workshop's "Warhammer 40k" series, and in fact begun its life as officially licensed by games workshop. Just an FYI, take what you will from this.

I love how he doesn't do another recording when he mucks up his lines, like it's just part of the show now. Still, for a guy who is reading off a script he manages to inject a bit of personality into it without the typical up-down rhythm that most people do. That and his videos are epic in size, it's disgusting how few subs and views he has on these videos. I think it might be a result of this 'tldr' cultural generation, plus the whole, let's watch someone play a game instead of playing it yourself. Fucking weirdos.

Former NA Diamond (ie. I don't 100% suck, I just sorta suck), and I enjoyed this every bit as much as if I did really suck at starcraft. I think you'd benefit from learning hotkeys and using control groups Noah.

Great intro 💯

I can't believe you've made a 1 hour 10 minute video about Starcraft and I can see you're not using hotkeys. It's impressive that you manage to play this game at all.