This custom campaign was made by RoughRider in 2023. You can get it here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10_lEp3fdnY63a-LGWhMyUU3VTpN9f4pI?usp=sharing
Mission 1 - “Trivial Matters”: The mission briefing explains concisely what the campaign is about. I’d say it’s a short story based solely on the fact that the concept of finding Tassadar is pretty straightforward, plus I think those specific events in the vanilla campaign took place in a brief period of time. So I was curious about what I would find in the next missions. It’s interesting the fact that instead of fighting the Protoss you confront the Dominion in this starting mission. The objectives don’t specify it either, something I consider a good decision.
I saved the Hunter Killers, but I had to be careful to achieve so. When I attacked the northeast base the Dominion sent a lot of reinforcements, so I burrowed the Hunter Killers when the situation was delicate. I continued destroying bases clockwise, while claiming the resources being left, until I completed the mission.
Mission 2 - “Body Count”: I find very interesting the use of this concept for a campaign mission. And how it is embedded in the story adds a lot of value to this map. Very entertaining to play. It wasn’t really difficult. I included Kerrigan in my early attacks for support, because I wanted to secure advantage in the number of kills, but she died when I was attacking the northeast base. Never mind, I played more carefully during my second attempt. This time I completed the mission, but at a certain point Kerrigan had 10 HP. The Zerg ally took a while preparing attacks, so during my both playthroughs I was ahead orange roughly after the first 10 minutes. I liked the resource placement in my starting base. As for the dialogues, well written. Kerrigan really sounded like herself in the mission briefings.
Mission 3 - “Hot Spot”: I didn’t realize I had another base in the southeast corner until it was attacked by the first wave of Zealots. Kerrigan passed through the Photon Cannons near the north expansion while I wasn’t paying attention. She got to the high ground near my base with 7 HP. But I wasn’t aware yet that the mission in fact was very difficult. When I restarted I did pretty well in the game, destroying all the surrounding Protoss structures in the high ground and taking both mineral expansions. But with more than 10k minerals and almost without gas I couldn’t destroy the central area. Zerglings were killed by Reavers too quickly. I restarted and focused exclusively on creating Mutalisks, but the Protoss created lots of Dragoons. I was able to wipe out the surrounding structures again thanks to the flying speed of Mutalisks, but attacking the central bases was a different story. I certainly avoided Archons, but couldn’t stand against the Dragoons nevertheless. During my next attempts I tried building more defensive structures. Defending the mineral expansions was hard, especially because the Protoss used lots of Reavers. I had problems defending the orange bases as well, no matter how many defensive structures I placed there. I counted seven Reavers in the southwest corner! The solution was to use all the available tech. Six Zerg Queens to snipe Dragoons. I parasited the Arbiter but it was still complicated to snipe it with Scourges. I casted Psi Storm over Reavers, and sometimes to make enemy units retreat inside their base. I had to move quickly all the time to prevent the Protoss from rebuilding their forces.
Mission 4 - “The Great Escape”: Although Kerrigan says it’s only safe in the ground, I checked with air units to see if I could pass through some areas transporting ground units in Overlords. There were too many Photon Cannons in the upper half, so I used shortcuts with my Overlords. When reaching the Beacon I didn’t have many units left. I was able to pass by the Protoss enemies because I had a good number of Overlords. I simply avoided exposing the Overlord with Kerrigan inside. I finished the mission with a few remaining seconds.
Mission 5 - “Jet Core”: The map layout was very intriguing. I thought the mission would be simple until I was taken to the next floor. Requires patience. The Beacons connecting different locations were very helpful nonetheless. I used them strategically. Infested Terrans were very well placed.
Mission 6 - “Grudge Match”: I absolutely liked the layout of my starting base. The Creep Colony in the high ground was appreciated (I morphed it into a Sunken Colony, which lasted more than 40 minutes from game start). I considered the expansion above to be a cozy place. I attacked my former ally in the west, to gain extra resources. But didn’t attack the main orange island right below. From there I focused exclusively on the Protoss. After completing the mission the game lagged because an overly excessive amount of Zerg units were being spawned. I loaded the game to see if by killing the orange Zerg I would gain access to Ultralisks but that didn’t happen. I guess Ultralisks should be disabled since I didn’t have access to Ultralisk Cavern.
Very good campaign. And I have to remark that most of the maps were done on Ash World tileset and still were appealing. Writing the appropriate script for Tassadar and Kerrigan was quite an achievement. Regarding the Cerebrate introduced in the story, I liked the character.
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