Line #30 YMMV/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm


1	See also:
2	* [[YMMV/StarCraft StarCraft's (series and first game/expansion) YMMV tab]]
3	* [[YMMV/StarCraftIIWingsOfLiberty Wings of Liberty's YMMV tab]]
4	* [[YMMV/StarCraftIILegacyOfTheVoid Legacy of the Void's YMMV tab]]
5	* [[YMMV/StarCraftIINovaCovertOps Nova Covert Ops YMMV tab]]
6	----
7	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
8	** Mengsk does mention he feels like Kerrigan is his biggest mistake, but the game leaves it ambiguous if he actually feels guilt for [[CreateYourOwnVillain creating one of the biggest mass-murderers in the Koprulu Sector by doing so]], or if he's just pissed off about the fact that he created the biggest obstacle to his plans. Either way, there're no more doubts about him being a bastard. For that matter, is Mengsk a hypocrite who's just trying to save his own skin, or does he genuinely believe he's the last chance of survival humanity has?
9	*** On a related note. Mengsk is considerably more tyrannical in this game than he was in ''Wings of Liberty'', and that alone is saying something. Now, is it because of the exposure from ''Media Blitz'' and he's realized he has no reason to hide his true colors, or, in a more sinister note, [[spoiler:has Duran been controlling him since ''Brood War'', first subtly to make the Hybrid and now outright mind-control to try anything he can to kill the one threat to Amon's goals? After all, ''Whispers of Oblivion'' does establish the hybrid can outright mind-control an entire army of terrans. One dictator would be child's play...]]
10	** The game doesn't specifically says why Kerrigan [[spoiler:abandons Niadra]], so this part of her attitude is completely up to interpretation. Did she do that because [[spoiler:she was disgusted about [[ShootTheDog what she just used her for]]]]? Or was this just a [[spoiler:YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness]] caused by what remained of the Dark Voice's influence? [[spoiler: Could it be because the ship teleported to Shakuras and thus might be out of range for communication?]] Could it be that [[spoiler: Amon]] is blocking Niadra's connection to the Swarm?
11	** When Kerrigan kills [[spoiler: Horace Warfield]], was it really out of petty grief over him talking about what Raynor would think of her, or did his thoughts betray him at some point and she became aware of some skeletons in his closet by MindReading? Perhaps both factored in.
12	** Another possible interpretation for Kerrigan is that she's always been [[FantasticRacism xenophobic]] towards the Protoss race. There was already some possible hints towards this in the original ''Starcraft: Brood War'' regarding how far she will go to give the Protoss a rough time as the Queen of Blades. Sometimes to the point where it wouldn't even make sense, such as her claim to Zeratul that letting him live to continuously suffer at the thought of being the one who killed Raszagal was "a better revenge she could ever dream of" when there wasn't even anything that Zeratul did to Kerrigan for her to desire revenge on him to begin with. By the time of ''Heart of the Swarm'', she once again goes about killing more Protoss she has no beef with whatsoever, particularly on Kaldir and the Evolution missions, which just leaves you wondering once it's all said and done with...maybe she just doesn't like Protoss...
13	** ...Another possibility is some remnant of [[spoiler: Amon's influence]] lingered within her, as ''VideoGame/LegacyOfTheVoid'' reveals that he has a burning hatred towards the Protoss due to them defying his will. It can be curious that Kerrigan is called out by Lassara for killing Protoss to save her own life but Kerrigan replies that the Protoss have killed millions of Zerg, a claim that can ring hollow after the Queen of Blades stabbed her temporary allies in the back during ''Brood War''; [[spoiler: Amon]] ''also'' likes to manipulate his opponents by condemning the deaths they have caused fighting against him, as can be observed during the ''Legacy of the Void'' campaign when Artanis is contacted by him.
14	* AnnoyingVideoGameHelper: The game feels more "hand-holdy" than previous installments. New abilities given to characters will be the ''only'' solution to the current situation when the ability is introduced, which, while obvious enough in and of itself, is accompanied by someone pointing out exactly this: "Use this button to solve the problem!"
15	** The campaign starts off with several tutorial-like levels. In addition, the protagonist will lean on the fourth wall a bit to nudge the player (though without WhatTheHellPlayer, more like "For your information player"--such as "Hey, I should use X ability right now"). Finally, the interface now contains more direct hints ("Move hero here," "Click the Mutate Structure button"). This "assistance" persists into at least the second-highest ("Select only if you are a VideoGame/StarCraft veteran") difficulty level.
16	** Izsha will inform you it takes three Drones to mine Vespene at maximum efficiency right up to the final mission, and if you put off going for an optional objective, she pops in to remind you about them.
17	** Izsha's recommendation to make Zerg Units that can attack flying units will pop up on a frequent basis towards the end of the game, too.
18	** Two different versions of the GUI used to give orders to units now exist. One is the "standard" array of buttons (at least six commands for any combat unit) while the "Simple" version offers "Move," "Attack" and special ability sections, excluding items such as Patrol or Hold Position.
19	* AnticlimaxBoss: Zurvan is considerably easier than the preceding boss Slivan, as all his attacks are highly visible and not very fast. Slivan on the other hand constantly mass-manufactures living explosives without warning.
20	* BaseBreakingCharacter: General Warfield. While he's mostly well-liked, the fandom disagrees on the creative decision to [[spoiler:kill him off.]] Some think that Warfield had too little screentime in the trilogy to be very memorable or impactful, so [[spoiler:Kerrigan killing him]] has little weight to it and was a waste of a character that could have been more. Others thing that he ''did'' have enough screentime in the two games to properly establish himself and earn a reputation as a FourStarBadass, and thus [[spoiler:his death]] ''is'' impactful, and his actions in the scene cement his coolness.
21	* BestLevelEver: The game is full of superbly designed missions, but "Infested" still beats the rest by a bit. The goal is fairly mundane - seize control of a terran facility - but unlike the usual examples, this one lets you infest a large number of buildings all over the map that then proceed to spawn ''legions'' of infested terrans and marines. The only units you need to build yourself are the ones you need to defend your bases with during the regular intervals when the infested can't act. The rest is just gleefully watching the enemy drown in endless streams of expendable units, with hundreds of them overrunning the map in almost any given moment. In addition, this is the mission that introduces the Infestors, and their Neural Parasite ability. No limitations on how long you can control enemies nor any limitations on how many you can control at once, unlike in the regular game. No mission in the entire franchise showcases the zerg mindsets of ZergRush and WeHaveReserves better than this one.
22	* BrokenBase: Much like ''Wings of Liberty'', there are points in the game considered controversial:
23	** The multiple Retcons to deeply engrained lore in order to include the Primal Zerg and new sentient Zerg, as well as the choice to [[HeelFaceTurn give the Zerg a somewhat more heroic role]], similar to what was done with the Orcs in ''VideoGame/WarCraft''. Some fans dislike the ContinuitySnarl it involves, and believe [[VillainDecay it made the Zerg less scary and threatening]]. Others appreciate it these change for fleshing out the species, giving it characters with ''actual'' personalities beside Kerrigan and making them something more unique than a generic HordeOfAlienLocusts.
24	** Kerrigan's characterization can also break bases. One camp believes it to be a good CharacterDevelopment that humanizes the former Queen of Blades who was previously known as an extremely brutal, remorseless and sadistic being. Another camp believes that her sins as the Queen of Blades are completely unforgivable and this characterization attempts to make her a KarmaHoudini by trying to make her sympathetic. [[TakeAThirdOption Another camp]] believes that she should just stick with the complete Queen Bitch of The Universe personality as it was a phenomenally awesome villain instead of being a conflicted character.
25	* CatharsisFactor: After so many years Mengsk has marginalized Jim Raynor, along with committing many atrocities and making countless people suffer and die from his tyranny, it was very fulfilling to see Kerrigan finally kill the emperor.
26	* ComplacentGamingSyndrome:
27	** The Swarmling strain morphs 3 at a time compared to other Zerglings morphing 2 at a time, and they morph almost instantly. However, they have no statistical advantage over regular Zerglings and the extra Zergling still costs the regular amount of supply, meaning that they don't actually get any stronger, and there's only so much they can do when scrambled against later attack waves (their only real advantage). Players will almost always opt for the Raptor strain instead, which deals a lot more damage and can leap onto enemies from a distance, greatly increasing the Zergling's combat ability.
28	** The Hydralisk's strains allow them to morph into either the Lurker, which deals damage in a line and is strong against Light units, or the Impaler, which attacks one unit at a time and has a bonus against Armored units. The Impaler is universally the preferred choice of the two, since the most threatening units in the campaign (especially later on, where almost all of your enemies are Terran) are Armored, and Light units get chewed up by Impalers anyway. Their lack of area damage is more than compensated for by having a much longer attack range than the Lurker.
29	** Corpser Roaches spawn Roachlings whenever a unit they hit dies, while Vile Roaches inflict a powerful attack and movement slow on their targets instead. However, Roachlings are just ''so'' weak and insignifcant in the grand scheme of things that Vile Roaches are nigh-universally a better option for damage mitigation.
30	** Noxious Ultralisks deal periodic damage to nearby units both passively and with an autocast ability, making them more powerful against groups of ground units. On the other hand, their competition is the Torrasque, which gives you ''reviving Ultralisks'' and is by far the more favored option.
31	* DesignatedHero: Kerrigan has been accused of this by some fans; while there is no denying Mengsk is an evil bastard who needs to be overthrown and she is more than justified in her hatred of him, a lot of her actions during the campaign, such as [[ShootTheDog killing the Protoss on Kaldir]], [[InferredHolocaust routinely ordering her brood mothers to invade Dominion planets]] or attacking Protoss soldiers and innocent bestial races she seemingly has no beef with at all for the sake of Abathur's experiments, feel excessive and villainous. Granted, she ''is'' supposed to be an AntiHero, and she does get mostly better as the campaign goes on, but there is ''a lot'' of debate on how justified the multitude of death she caused trying to reach Mengsk was, and some consider [[VillainHasAPoint he is right to call her out for it]].
32	* EnsembleDarkhorse:
33	** Abathur, the local MadScientist is rather popular, with some people filing petitions for him to be the new Zerg Advisor, ''which then happened'' with the announcement a voice pack for such will be released after ''Legacy of the Void''. He even becomes a unique hero in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'' for that, being the first 'Engineer' character to have the privilege!
34	** Despite only playing a role for [[OneShotCharacter one mission]], Naktul has gained a bit of a following due to people buying into the ridiculousness of a LargeHam Broodmother. Particularly, the way she always puts huge emphasis on some of her words.
35	* FanNickname: The BossBattle with Zurvan tends to be called out as the "Belial Fight" due to how similar it is to Belial's boss battle in ''VideoGame/DiabloIII''.
36	* GameBreaker:
37	** Kerrigan herself makes the campaign a breeze. She ''starts'' with two spells, one of which is essentially Yamato Cannon with no charge time and lower energy cost, the other an [=AoE=] stun with damage-over-time, and she has an innately high energy and health regeneration rates. From there she moves on to doubling the attack rate of allies and giving them +200 max HP for a time, spawning overlords instantly and causing them to give double supply, making drones hatch two from an egg, spawning six banelings at a target location, summoning an army of primal zerg instantly with drop pods, and healing allies nearby. If you know how to use her abilities properly and micro her carefully, Kerrigan can solo a lot of missions. As an added bonus, while Kerrigan is far from indestructible (in fact on the last few missions she die very easily if the player is careless), she respawns for free at your main hatchery/lair/hive sixty seconds later. And she will do this forever. As [[https://youtu.be/TiFOtUTjr3k this playthrough]] demonstrates, Kerrigan can plow through entire end-game missions single-handedly ''on Brutal difficulty'' if you've been keeping up with bonus objectives.
38	** One of her abilities creates Broodlings whenever she kills a unit, either with her attack or with an ability. One of her ultimate abilities, Apocalypse, lets her deal 300 damage to all enemy units in a large area of effect. Nuke a base's defenses and all of them create Broodlings to attack what's left. Granted Apocalypse has a ''huge'' cooldown of several minutes, but one use is usually going to be enough.
39	** As in ''Wings of Liberty'', the campaign involves a lot of tech and upgrades that aren't present in multiplayer, and they snap the game's difficulty over their leg like a twig.
40	*** Zerglings can be upgraded into Raptors, which have cliff-jumping, leap at targets to attack similar to Charge, and have a +2 damage buff, or Swarmlings, which mutate 3 from an egg and only take a couple seconds to mutate. And by the way, Swarmlings can still mutate into Banelings. And speaking of Banelings, they can be upgraded too. Hunters are cliff-jumpers and leap at targets just like Raptors, or Splitters leave to smaller Banelings when they explode for further damage. You can also give Banelings innate upgrades to heal nearby Zerg on eruption, increase the damage on their primary target, or increase their blast radius by 50%. A perfectly viable strategy is to just mass Swarmlings, mutate them all into Banelings, and move them through the enemy's base, blowing up anything they roll past as the enemy kills them.
41	*** Roaches can be upgraded to have a slow-on-hit effect like the Marauder, ''better'' than the Marauder in fact, or to spawn Roachlings when a unit they've attacked recently dies. Roachlings are basically Zerglings, and they spawn two at a time from any enemy killed after being hit by a Roach.
42	*** Mutalisks can be upgraded to have their glaive worms bounce three more times, hitting a total of six targets, or to give up the bounce entirely for a +9 damage buff to armored targets. ''Or'' they can get a rapid bonus to HP regen rate when out of combat. Because ya know, Mutalisk swarms weren't deadly enough already, they need to tear through targets even faster, or hit and run more often thanks to better health regen.
43	*** Broodlords are incredibly useful for sieging bases in the campaign, along with Mutalisk support. They're only unlocked late in the campaign, but Mutalisks supported by Broodlords can be difficult for the computer to deal with thanks to the confusion their Broodlings sow while the Mutas handle much of the enemy air with Sundering glave.
44	*** Swarm Queens. Their Heal ability is autocast compared to the normal Queen, and they move faster off of creep. The result is similar to the idea of taking a Hydralisk and giving it the Medic's heal ability.
45	*** Aberrations can now walk over smaller units like the Colossus, and have a powerful damage buff against armored enemies like the Immortal. Your main opponents for the campaign is the Terran Dominion. Marine, Reaper, Ghost; those are the units that ''aren't'' of the Armored type. Everything else is going to be shredded. In the same vein for defense are Impalers, Lurker variants that have 9 range and tear through Armored enemies almost as good as the Aberration.
46	*** Ultralisks can be upgraded to revive upon death with nothing needed for it to happen but a 60 second cooldown on a second revival, or to release noxious clouds of gas to damage enemies further. Even without those two evolutions, they can get Burrow Charge, which is like the Zealot's Charge but they burrow to do it and stun enemies when they erupt. Ya know how the biggest problem with the Ultralisk was getting them close to the target and not stuck behind your other troops? Not a problem anymore.
47	*** Infestors have no restraint on their Neural Parasite ability, and can eat up other friendly units to quickly regain energy. A few of these can easily turn the enemy's most powerful units against them. And if the enemy is left with weak units that aren't worth stealing, Fungal Growth takes care of those.
48	** ''Heart of the Swarm'' introduced the Terran Warhound, which was intended to be an AntiVehicle unit; however, it was removed on the basis of it being this trope -- a powerful LightningBruiser whom very few units were cost-effective against.
49	* GoodBadBugs:
50	** In the Jumping Baneling evolution mission, there's a trigger you're supposed to walk across at the first group of burrowed Jumping Banelings that is meant to activate the map's lava rising mechanic. However, there's enough room along the top edge of the cliff for a single Baneling to skip the trigger zone, which results in the lava rising mechanic never activating for the map. This makes the evolution mission a lot faster to complete as you no longer have to stop and wait whenever the lava mechanic activates.
51	** In the Impaler evolution mission, there's a moment right after your Hydralisks obtain enough essence where you can bug Abathur into providing you 5 extra Impalers. If you hold down the "R" hotkey at the exact moment to transform your Hydralisks into Impalers the moment their first egg transformation into Impaler-strain Hydralisks wears off, it will make Abathur think you've lost all your units, which he will drop in 5 new Impalers; giving you a total of 10 Impalers instead of 5. The additional 5 Impalers will, of course, make the evolution mission faster to complete.
52	** "Conviction" has an exploit regarding the transition between the two levels of the prison ship that makes the second half of the level really fast to complete. If you use Kerrigan's Leaping Strike at the exact moment that the game transitions from the first floor to the second floor, it will bug Kerrigan out, and place her in an out-of-bounds area at the top of the second floor map. This allows for the player to walk Kerrigan through the out-of-bounds area right over to Raynor's prison cell, and jump back into the map with Leaping Strike in order to clear out the final room. The only other Kerrigan ability you will need is Spawn Baneling to spawn them over the previous door. The reason is to activate the trigger that makes said door destructible as needing to break down the gate that the Dominion soldiers are trying to break into is a requirement to complete the mission. Once it's all said and done, the only thing you miss out on is the second map's pick-up for an additional Kerrigan level.
53	* HarsherInHindsight: Zagara states how she feels sorry for the Terrans because they don't have a hive mind, and therefore are each alone. In ''Legacy of the Void'', [[spoiler:one of the first things the Protoss are forced to do is sever themselves from the Khala so as to be free from Amon controlling them. Afterwards each one states how alone they feel now they are no longer connected to one another]]. Additionally, the lack of a hive mind or Khala does nothing to prevent Terrans from falling under the thrall of the Hybrid's mind control.
54	* HilariousInHindsight:
55	** In ''Wings of Liberty'', Raynor said to Orlan he ought to kill him when he'd captured him after trying to sell him out to the Dominion, but he might need to hire him someday, and hands him over to Mira as a prisoner. [[spoiler:This time around, Orlan is hired to hack the Dominion network to find out where Raynor is imprisoned, ''after'' the Raiders fight Mira to free him]].
56	** Also in ''Wings'', UNN's Donny Vermillion once accused Raynor of allying with the Zerg to overthrow the Emperor,[[spoiler: which is exactly what he did in the final mission]].
57	* InferredHolocaust: Kerrigan routinely is contacted by broodmothers wishing to rejoin the Swarm, and Kerrigan tells them the price of admission is to infest a world. The evolution missions also take place on planets you don't visit in normal missions, but are in the process of being invaded by another brood mother. All of the planets targeted are military strong points, but it's unclear whether they also have civilian populations.
58	* IronWoobie: [[spoiler:Stukov; after getting killed by Duran and having his whole faction killed by the original Queen of Blade in ''Brood War'' (making him a SenselessSacrifice), then being resurrected as an infested terran and cured, it turns out he has been infested ''again'', as well as kept prisonner and experimented on by Narud for years. He can never goes back on Earth, and if he could, there would be no place for him, since he is half-Terran half-Zerg. Yet, you don't see him mourning about it. He even seemed a little excited about possibly fighting "a good death" against Amon, since he has no other purpose left in life]].
59	* JerkassWoobie: Kerrigan, big time. She has barely recovered from being BrainwashedAndCrazy into acting like an OmnicidalManiac for entire years, and shit just start being thrown at her again: Mensgk keeps wanting her dead, [[spoiler:her boyfriend is apparently killed, and when it turns out he is alive, he is so horrified by what she has done to herself that he doesn't want anything to do with her anymore until the finale]]. Any wonder she is so pissed off?
60	* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: [[spoiler:Jim Raynor's]] death. Even if you were somehow willing to believe the writers would kill off [[spoiler:the main heroic figure of the Terran race]] in just the second part of the sequel trilogy, it happens off-screen and is reported by Arcturus Mengsk and the Dominion, when Mengsk is well-known to be a liar who manipulates the media. When it turns out that Mengsk was lying, the characters are way more shocked than players.
61	* MemeticMolester: Abathur wants a sample of Kerrigan's essence. Not helped by the fact [[spoiler:it's revealed ''he'' was the one who put her in the chrysalis that first turned her into the Queen of Blades]].
62	* MoralEventHorizon:
63	** Just in case there was still doubt about Mengsk being a bigger asshole than Kerrigan is in her current state, he proves it to us again in the opening cinematic when he has his forces keep firing on the ''Hyperion'' even though Valerian, his ''own son'', is onboard it, and Mengsk knows that. The saddest part is that Valerian is not surprised about it.
64	--> ''"My father is willing to sacrifice any piece on the chessboard, so long as he takes the queen."''
65	* {{Narm}}:
66	** A lot of Kerrigan's dialogue that ''should'' be impactful falls flat with a hard thud thanks to a combination of DullSurprise and ThatMakesMeFeelAngry. Kerrigan tends to be very unemotive both in voice and in face, delivering lines with little variance in tone and no expression but for a faint frown or glare. This is amplified by many of her conversations being with Izsha and Abathur, who by their personalities ''are'' unemotional and straightforward, because they exist only to perform the duties they've assigned and are totally loyal to Kerrigan, and for the same reason they rarely exhibit curiosity in what's going on. This means most conversations with them has Kerrigan ask them for exposition, which they deliver in a direct and concise way, until Kerrigan gets disinterested and awkwardly ends the conversation.
67	*** Particular note to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JunqNjYk6wk&t=115 a late-game conversation]] between Kerrigan and [[spoiler:Stukov]]. They discuss Amon, and we get what is intended to be a big reveal for ''Wings of Liberty'', particularly the climax. But Kerrigan's realization of this information is delivered with a blank stare that only briefly turns to a more worried expression, and her line sounds like an actor doing a first read of the script.
68	** The Zerg, particularly Abathur and the Primal Zerg, are obsessed with "essence" to the point of CargoShip. It's made clear that the term refers to genetic sequences that could strengthen them if assimilated, and the writers have said it was done to reinforce their "purity of essence" since plans for a longer mission chain on Zerus had to be cut down. Still, "we must absorb their essence" and the many permutations of the phrase sound silly, and after you hear the word repeated over and over and over until the end of the campaign, it will likely just sound sillier each time. It gets worse with Dehaka, who apparently based every one of his responses around the words "essence" and "collect". The writers were apparently aware of this, since some parts (including the argument between Dehaka and Zagara) are PlayedForLaughs.
69	** The Tal'darim are back, and just like in ''Wings of Liberty'', they are so over-the-top in how [[LargeHam OUTRAGED]] they are by you even daring to approach their sacred artifact it can easily appear as comical.
70	** See the building that enables Swarm Host? One of the unit-enabled icon in it looks like [[VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies Scaredy-shroom]]. It doesn't help that Swarm Hosts are shrooms-on-four-legs.
71	** Zeratul putting his hand over Kerrigan's face and saying "BELIIIIIIEVE" as he gives her a vision of Zerus.
72	** Kerrigan slamming Narud into the wall while riding a Nydus worm. While it makes for an awesome fight scene in itself, the fact you have a female character attacking someone while riding a giant worm-like creature can make it somewhat hilarious.
73	** In "The Reckoning", Kerrigan makes a quip "your defenses could use some work, Arcturus", to which Mengsk replies "you'll pay for that!" Aside from the line itself being cheesy, the delivery makes it seem like Mengsk is more annoyed than angry, like Kerrigan broke his watch and he literally wants her to pay to replace it.
74	** As last words go, [[spoiler:"Ah made you into a ''mawnster'', Kerrigan"]] aren't exactly in the top ten.
75	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Jim Raynor's fight with Nova. We only see the set-up, and all we know about the aftermath is that they both survived, but its safe to assume the entire facility was destroyed.
76	* OneSceneWonder: The game makes a big thing about spawning a new brood mother named Niadra and giving her the objective to destroy the Protoss, but she is abandoned on-board a [[spoiler:derelict Protoss vessel]] with her brood after just one mission. Not seen again since.
77	** Nova, seen only in the second mission before disappearing for the rest of the campaign. However, an expansion pack based around her was later released.
78	* {{Padding}}:
79	** The Kal'dir mission chain. Kerrigan goes there look for one of her broodmothers to reclaim her and her brood, and finds the Protoss studying the planet. Kerrigan spends the three-mission chain fighting them then, with the broodmother forgotten about (you can find her corpse in the first mission but it's optional and makes no difference). The reason Kerrigan fights the Protoss is to prevent them from contacting Shakuras to inform the bulk of the Protoss her whereabouts so they can send the Golden Armada after her, but she could simply leave the planet and be long gone by the time they mobilized. The whole thing comes off as an ExcusePlot to pit Kerrigan against Protoss enemies in a campaign otherwise heavily slanted against the Terrans, but even that doesn't work since the Tal'Darim appear later. The mission is even more blatant padding if you put it off until after doing Zerus; if you did it beforehand, Kerrigan has a good reason to stop the Protoss from contacting Shakuras [[spoiler:and informing them she's been de-powered and is human again]], but after Zerus this isn't an issue and Kerrigan has no reason to be that concerned about the Golden Armada.
80	** "With Friends Like These" only occurs because [[spoiler:Mira Han]] invokes HonorBeforeReason and refuses to help you, so you strongarm her into it by blowing up some of her forces. [[spoiler:Valerian]] lampshades that [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot they should just talk this out]], only to be told "that isn't how things work here". The conflict is PlayedForLaughs and the mission is a BreatherLevel, but it still grinds the tension of the endgame to a halt for no reason.
81	** The evolution missions. Each one explores how Abathur came up with a powerful new breed of Zerg, by finding feral Zerg that have evolved or retrieving genetic material he can use to create a new strain. Each mission is short and easy, but also totally linear and near-scripted to the point of there being zero replay value. Their purpose is to show off the power of the new Zerg strains before you pick one to permanent add to your army, but by their nature the missions are tailor-made to suit that unit's strengths when you have the time to micro a small number of them; they don't give a good idea give a good idea of how they'll work as part of a massive Zerg army that regularly Attack-Moves at the enemy. Finally, ''Wings of Liberty'' and ''Legacy of the Void'' simply showed the player a small video of units in action on the upgrade-select interfaces to demonstrate their abilities, and ''Heart of the Swarm'' does the same thing ''after'' each evolution mission and when picking exclusive upgrades, so there's no reason for evolution missions to exist at all when these videos serve the same purpose.
82	* PlayerPunch: The final Char mission is an exercise in this, since the goal is to [[spoiler:kill the FourStarBadass / ReasonableAuthorityFigure who helped make Kerrigan human again in the previous game, gained Raynor's trust and respect, does his best to evacuate civilians and wounded from the Zerg onslaught. Most of his lines are WhatTheHellHero which Kerrigan doesn't have an answer to.]]
83	* RealismInducedHorror: During "Old Soldiers", Warfield is calling out Kerrigan for throwing away her deinfestation to commit war atrocities in vengeance against Mengsk and is almost in tears that she's chosen this path after he helped save her. Him saying that "you're not even human" can have double meaning: that she's not only infested but acting like war criminal and attacking indiscriminately, something that is a very real subject matter. This helps her [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone come to her senses]] and start working towards redemption.
84	* RomanticPlotTumor: Many fans believe the romantic plot between Jim Raynor and Kerrigan is this because they feel the romance is forced and takes away meaning from the plot of the first game, despite justifications from the story author. The other half of the audience are begging Blizzard on their forums to give Jim and Kerrigan a happy ending in Legacy of The Void. But since that expansion is supposed to be centered on the Protoss (and because of the dislike of their romance mentioned earlier) this leaves the first half of the audience to fear their romance is taking over the plot.
85	* RonTheDeathEater: Kerrigan; while there is no question that a lot of her actions are questionable in the game, and there are indeed many people amongst fans who tend to overlook this, just as many people tend to insist she doesn't deserve redemption for her past actions. Nevermind the fact it's made ''very'' clear she was [[NotHimself not fully in control of her actions as the Queen of Blades]] and genuinely feels guilt for it.
86	* ScrappyMechanic:
87	** Blizzard introduced MMR decay, which makes players start from lower divisions based on how active they are. For example, if you are in Masters but don't play any games for a month or two, you can find yourself bumped down to Silver. This has led to situations were extremely skilled Masters level players are getting bumped down to the lesser skilled divisions, resulting in a lot of {{Curbstomp Battle}}s. It's also disheartening for people who are used to being in higher levels then being crushed by other people used to being in higher levels, especially if they come back and don't know what MMR decay is. To sum it up, they are low level players upset because they are being crushed, there are high level players coming in who are disheartened for ending up in lower levels then normal, and there high level players who are being bored or feel bad about crushing players who are way less experienced than them.
88	** The missions dedicated to introducing strains for unit types is helpful on a first playthrough to help the player decide which to select, as this is a permanent selection that cannot be undone for the rest of the game. On repeated playthroughs, however, it's needless filler that cannot be skipped to the selection itself.
89	** The jumping ability of the Hunter Banelings is somewhat wonky on higher difficulties due to the AI now having the ability to retreat back if Banelings get to close. Because Hunter Banelings only jump to the spot in front of the enemy unit, what you end up with is an odd interaction where the enemy unit will constantly retreat and the Hunter Baneling unable to properly explode as it keeps bouncing to the front of the retreating unit. Because of this annoyance, it's a lot more common for players to pick the Splitter Baneling strain.
90	* SequelDifficultyDrop: ''Heart of the Swarm'' is much easier than ''Wings of Liberty''. Hatcheries innately produce up to 9 larvae each, making it very easy to mass an army and replace them when they fall, Kerrigan is an extremely powerful hero unit and usable in most missions, and upgrading your army is simplified from ''Wings of Liberty'', with players able to switch between Zerg evolutions at any time and getting Evolution Missions in accordance with the story, and the upgraded Zerg strains are often ridiculous in how good they are. This is actually GameplayAndStoryIntegration -- WordOfGod claimed that at the end of the Brood War, Kerrigan could have crushed her enemies without effort, but just didn't care to do it. Now that Mengsk has pissed her off in this game, and with the Protoss laying low, Kerrigan is bringing the full wrath of her Swarm down on the Dominion and there is little anyone can do to stop her.
91	* SophomoreSlump: In terms of the trilogy's single-player campaigns. ''Wings of Liberty'' and ''Legacy of the Void'' have their detractors but overall are enjoyed for both story and gameplay reasons, while ''Heart of the Swarm'' is the worst of the trilogy on both fronts.
92	** The story has a lot of problems, foremost being that Kerrigan edges on being an UnintentionallyUnsympathetic DesignatedHero, and most of her victories come about due to her enemies grabbing the IdiotBall or the VillainBall. The dialogue is cheesy and forced and the story is straightforward with few surprises or twists, making it a slog to sit through the storyline waiting for the obvious conclusions to each story arc, and depriving emotional moments of their intended impact.
93	** The supporting cast is the weakest of the trilogy. In the other two games, the secondary characters have distinct personalities and present different views on plot developments, and would even banter with Raynor or Artanis. Kerrigan's advisors, however, are single-minded in their interests and perspectives, since that's how Zerg are by nature. They are also entirely loyal to Kerrigan and rarely argue with her, and any time they displease her she puts them in their place and they back down. This means that Kerrigan's advisors are nowhere near as developed as those of Raynor or Artanis; they don't have very complex personalities, they don't have any particularly interesting insights to share on most subjects or alternate viewpoints that clash with Kerrigan's or change hers, and they explain things to Kerrigan directly when asked and serve mostly to deliver exposition. For her own part, Kerrigan tends to listen to them until they say something that displeases her or she just loses interest in the subject, and she shuts the conversation down without issue.
94	** For gameplay, ''Heart of the Swarm'' is by far the easiest of the trilogy, even on Brutal difficulty, and players can effortlessly steamroll enemies without much trouble. Additionally...
95	*** While ''Wings of Liberty's'' campaign missions could be completed one mission at a time without dedicating to a specific arc, and ''Legacy of the Void'' had fewer missions for each arc in general, ''Heart of the Swarm's'' arcs are usually three missions long and forcing each arc to be completed in order. There is some variance in which each arc can be played out, starting between Char and Kaldir (and later Zerus after one is completed), followed by the arcs that involve destroying Narud's facilities and [[spoiler:rescuing Raynor]], but at most the only difference with each selection ultimately comes down to when Kerrigan's party members join (with Kaldir, having no party members, having the more essential units unlocked).
96	*** There's also the evolution missions, which in theory is helpful for making a selection that cannot be undone but ends up becoming filler for repeated playthroughs and are loaded with FakeBalance, with one of the two upgrades almost always being blatantly better than it's counterpart.
97	*** Not helping matters is how the vast majority of the game involves fighting the Terran Dominion, leaving relatively little variety in the enemies the player faces (especially regarding the Protoss).
98	*** This is further exacerbated by the comparative lack of original units. Where ''Wings of Liberty'' brought back nearly every deprecated unit from ''Starcraft I'' and a good handful of units originally slated for multiplayer but ultimately cancelled, and ''Legacy Of the Void'' gave you three units for each role, with a good number of largely transformative ones that take them into an entirely new direction, with many slots having those same ''Brood War'' era units as one of their options, ''Heart of the Swarm'' mostly just boiled down to tacking on some very unevenly balanced extra powers onto existing Zerg units as a backdrop to Kerrigan herself.
99	* StrawmanHasAPoint: Kerrigan already dances on the edges of being a VillainProtagonist, then comes this exchange. Arcturus's words do not change the fact he had a major hand in Kerrigan's rebirth as the Queen of Blades and [[spoiler:the creation of the Hybrids]], but his rebuttals to her are a bit more convincing than hers to his:
100	-->'''Mengsk:''' Look what you have wrought, Kerrigan. [[WhatTheHellHero Thousands dead, all for your revenge]]. \
101	'''Kerrigan:''' Their blood is on your hands, Arcturus. [[PayEvilUntoEvil You made all this happen]]. \
102	'''Mengsk:''' I've done great and terrible things, it's true. [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans And I would again, to protect humanity from monsters like you]].
103	** He gets another one when he points out that she pissed all over Raynor's efforts to save her, and that he'd probably loathe her. Kerrigan's reaction is subtle but it's there.
104	* ThatOneAchievement: A good portion of the Mastery Achievements can be considered this as most of them require the player to finish the level in a ridiculously short period of time, not only forcing the player to act quickly, but allows for almost no room for error.
105	** Of the Mastery Achievements, there's a particularly large player agreement that "Premature Evacuation" for the Rendezvous mission is the most annoying of the lot; having to destroy ''ALL'' the Dominion structures before the Zerg reinforcements arrive after a 15 minute time-frame...with nothing but Zerglings, Queens, a fairly weak Kerrigan hero-unit and the army hotkey disabled.
106	** "Dominion Domination" requires you to have three Hybrid Dominators killed by ''Terran'' units on "Hand of Darkness". There are two ways to do this: one of them is to create Infestors and use Parasitic Domination on strong Terran units, which is a straightforward solution, but it also means you need to prevent them from being killed AND ensure they deal the killing blow. The second way... is to just lure the Dominators to the Dominion bases, as they are actually not allies, '''which you simply can't know''' (as technically both are working with [[spoiler:Narud]]) unless you accidentally cause them to encounter each other. And even then, depending on the state of the Terran bases, you might still have to damage the Dominators to ensure the Terrans can destroy them.
107	** From the non-Mastery achievements, there's "Can't Touch This Chrysalis" which requires you to beat "The Crucible" without the chrysalis taking any damage. The time you have to HoldTheLine on this level is by no means short, and all it takes is one Mutalisk slipping past your defenses to completely void the achievement.
108	** The 10th Anniversary achievement "Full Coverage" requires completing "Fire in the Sky" with at least 40% of the map covered with creep. Not 40% of the parts of the map you can bring Queens to, but the ''whole'' map (of which only 50% is accessible), which means you actually have to cover the near entirety of the map, including dead ends, secondary objectives, and Dominion bases, to complete the achievement. This goes along a soft time limit that also has to be managed correctly - you can't simply activate the Scourge Nests as soon as the Gorgons appear, or you won't have enough time to clear ground for creep.
109	** "Two-Man Swarm", from the 10th Anniversary pack, requires you to kill 50 units with the Brutalisks on "Hand of Darkness". There are several factors that make this achievement frustrating. One, the Brutalisks are ''not'' marked on your minimap, unlike the vast majority of bonus objectives, and two, the number of enemies is finite, meaning you'll have to play through the map likely a few times to route a path for Kerrigan to run to the Brutalisks without killing too many enemies or getting killed. And three: while powerful, the Brutalisks have an ''insanely'' slow attack speed and only hit one enemy at a time, making them great for tanking and hitting the Hybrids but not so good against swarms of Marines, which also makes it hard for them to compete with your army and Kerrigan for last hits, and running them into enemies alone will almost certainly get them [[DeathOfAThousandCuts chipped to death]].
110	* ThatOneLevel: The Crucible. It's essentially a Zerg take on ''All-In'' from ''Wings of Liberty'', you have to defend an objective building for half an hour and it has an ability that can help you hold off enemy attack waves. First, it's one of the few missions where you don't get Kerrigan, so you're without your overpowered hero unit; second, the Terran race is very good at base defense, while the Zerg are very much not. You have to defend two (later three, once a barricade is broken down) chokepoints from waves of enemies that include Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Guardians, and Ultralisks, and even with rows of Spine Crawler turrets you'll struggle to do so and will likely be constantly replacing them as they get destroyed. Your new unit for the mission, the Swarm Host, is not a terrible unit since the Locusts buy time for your turrets to attack, but the Locusts aren't very effective attackers otherwise. The bonus objective for the mission also requires you to venture out of your base to the far south side of the map to kill the objective, forcing you to cross battle lines between two enemy forces -- you need to time your movements right to slip through without getting into a fight, and while waiting for another break to get back out those forces will be trapped and unable to help with defense.
111	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Nova. She only shows up for the 2nd mission, which is a shame when it looked like the story was going to have a bit of a cat-and-mouse chase feel to it where Nova spends the campaign hunting for Kerrigan. It also seemed like a great opportunity to have a ghost rivalry between Nova and Kerrigan. Especially when you consider that Nova was the reason that Raynor got captured, which would have given Kerrigan a {{Revenge}} motivation against Nova.
112	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: All the bonus objectives in each mission reward Kerrigan power levels, and the developers seemingly expect you to do them all since you need all possible levels to unlock the highest tier of Kerrigan's abilities. On the other hand, the evolved forms of your units are unlocked arbitrarily after doing a certain number of missions. The two could have been tied together, with bonus objectives to secure essence strands that could be used to evolve a unit, or a bonus objective that unlocks an evolution mission. [[note]]Something like this ''was'' planned during development; players would earn mutagen they could spend like currency to unlock passive upgrades for units and eventually evolve them, but it was simplified and given solely to Kerrigan.[[/note]]
113	* UglyCute:
114	** There's something endearing about young Broodmother Niadra and the way she tries her best to grow up... even if "doing her best" means being a [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Xenomorph-expy]].
115	** The first time Broodmother Zagara meets Kerrigan in the leviathan, she is doing a certain Victorian gesture of respect, in which one lifts one's own gown a tiny bit while bowing. She continues being Kerrigan's posse through the game.
116	** The broken-tusked Zerg that's always near Kerrigan in cutscenes near the start of the game, her interactions with it come across as being a bit like a dog and its master.
117	* UnintentionalUncannyValley: The various Zerg advisors, what with performing human gestures like curtsying or FingerTenting, despite not looking at all human (or at best like [[Literature/HarryPotter Voldemort]]).
118	* UnderusedGameMechanic: The campaign gameplay.
119	** Depending on a particular choice made in ''VideoGame/WingsOfLiberty'', Nova's disposition to Raynor changes but it doesn't really affect gameplay. Wouldn't it have been cool if it was possible for Gabriel Tosh to show up again and return the favor that Raynor did for him and help Kerrigan in the relevant late-game mission? Unfortunately, Raynor's choice between helping Nova or Tosh doesn't allow for a branching path in ''Heart of the Swarm'' and Tosh remains exclusive to ''Wings of Liberty''.
120	** The first Kaldir mission has the objective to kill ursadon matriarchs and assimilate their essence to first become immune to the flash freeze storms, then be able to operation more efficiently during them. This means that the bonus objectives not only reward Kerrigan levels, but affect how the player's army performs in the current mission. This is the only time any sort of mechanic like this pops up.
121	** Aerial combat is practically non-existent apart from going mass Mutalisks, and people commonly prefer to choose the air-to-ground Brood Lords instead of the air-to-air Vipers during their Evolution mission. In addition, Scourge, Devourers, and even Corruptors (a unit that was introduced ''in'' Starcraft II) are never unlocked for the player. According to WordOfGod, Devourers ''were'' planned, and can be found in the map editor complete with evolution pit abilities, but were cut because there wasn't much usage for anti-air in the campaign.
122	** Drop-play and detection also never come into play; the only time detection is needed throughout the entire campaign is against the Protoss Mothership that appears in the Kaldir arc. It's for this reason that the player never gets the ability to morph Overlords into Overseers.
123	** Many units don't have upgrades in the Evolution Pit for no reason other than the developers seemingly couldn't think of any or didn't want to give them any. Swarm Queens, Aberrations, and Infestors aren't there, and the evolutions for the Hydralisk and Mutalisk aren't either, which is odd when the Zergling's evolution, the Baneling, ''is'' in the Evolution Pit.
124	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
125	** Kerrigan, hand-in-hand with DesignatedHero. Even before [[spoiler:Mengsk "kills" Raynor]], it's shown that Kerrigan wants to kill Mengsk, uses the Zerg to trash an Umojan lab just to {{Troll}} Valerian (the Umojans being a neutral power that ''offered her shelter''), and uses the zerg to attack the Dominion. Throughout the campaign she's shown to embrace her role as the Queen of Blades again, having no problem ordering her Swarm to invade Dominion worlds and protoss colonies and kill everyone they see. The only change is that now she occasionally shows mercy, like [[spoiler:letting Warfield's injured troops evacuate]]. However, she still causes mass death, destruction, and chaos across the sector in the name of vengeance on Mengsk, as well as committing more personal acts of barbarism like implanting a zerg parasite into a helpless prisoner who was trying to reason with her, resulting in her turning into a horrific abomination. Kerrigan is a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds for sure, but she really tests how far one can take the "Destroyer of Worlds" part while still being the "Woobie" part.
126	** The Zerg species as a whole, partly because of the blatant RetCon of how they function. In the first game, the Zerg are explicitly non-sapient and not even really a species, but more like [[TheVirus a virus]] that infests other species. ''Brood War'' made it clear that the Overmind and later Kerrigan were the only guiding intelligences of the Zerg Swarm, and without them, the zerg are just feral animals. The manual to the first game also said that it was the Swarm that killed the Xel'naga. This game portrays the Zerg like sentient people and were basically mind-controlled by a rogue Xel'naga into being bad (it also introduces BlueAndOrangeMorality about how they want to "help" other species by assimilating them, when the first game made it clear that they didn't so much assimilate others as just kill them and puppet their corpses). Even disregarding the RetCon, the fact that most of the Zerg still ''are'' just animals, and mindlessly aggressive ones at that, makes it hard to see them the same way you would a Terran or Protoss. This culminates in a scene where Kerrigan "justifies" her murder of billions of Protoss [[NotSoDifferentRemark by saying the Protoss killed billions of Zerg, making them similar]]. Except the Protoss were acting in self-defense against a swarm of non-sapient monsters with no non-combatants, while Kerrigan was killing actual people (including non-combatants) who had done her no wrong purely out of "self-preservation" and spite. Never mind that Kerrigan had only recently been deinfested and the Zerg were known to have a history of aggressively invading planets and were designed to do so by [[spoiler:Amon]], or that Kerrigan was free to leave Kaldir before the Golden Armada arrived.
127	** Warfield can fall into this during his death scene. While there's nothing wrong with him [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech calling out]] Kerrigan for murdering so many people throughout her quest for {{Revenge}}, it also falls a bit flat when you remember that, rather than side with the more altruistic and heroic Valerian, Warfield remains perfectly fine with continuing to work with a corrupt Terran Emperor who got many innocents killed. Thus, Warfield comes off as a complete {{Hypocrite}} to some people.
128	* TheUntwist:
129	** Years ago, a cinematic was leaked depicting the hypothetical end of Heart of the Swarm. And when the game was finally released... that scene was recycled and used again, albeit with a few tweaks. Those tweaks ''really'' change the meaning of the ending though, despite some scenes having been reused.
130	** It didn't take long after the first game to figure out that [[spoiler:Emil ''Narud'' was Samir Duran.]] Some fans speculated though that [[spoiler:they may have been ''rivals'' working against each other, or they were actually different characters.]] Turns out no, they were right all along. And even though they never outright state it in ''Heart'', [[spoiler:''Legacy'' has Zeratul spell it out.]]
131	** Kerrigan getting re-infested into the Queen Of Blades. Her infested form is the box art, and the logo for the campaign.

Context YMMV / StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm