History YMMV / Starcraft

** ''[[VideoGame/StarcraftIILegacyOfTheVoid Legacy of the Void]]'': Alarak is a [[Characters/StarcraftTaldarim Tal'darim]] warrior who uses both schemes and power to climb the links of the Chain of Ascension and establish himself as an Ascendant of his people, killing rivals along the way and pitting his enemies against each other to advance his standing by proxy. When he's roped into a confrontation between the three Ascendants above him and the [[EvilOverlord Highlord Ma'lash]], Alarak surveils the situation and then sits things out, letting the other four kill and weaken each other until he sweeps in and cleans up what's left, leaving only Ma'lash outranking him. Alarak then reaches out to the [[Characters/StarcraftDaelaam Daelaam]], who have been enemies of the Tal'darim for centuries, and makes them an ally to kill Ma'lash. As Highlord, Alarak turns his people against their traitorous god Amon and helps the Daelaam banish him back to the Void and eventually kill him. He's brutal, he's powerful, he's cunning, and he's merciless—Alarak is the pinnacle of what other Tal'darim aspire to be.

* FandomRivalry: With ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. A sane man simply doesn't bring up the two together on the majority of forums. [[DontTryThisAtHome Seriously]]. It is a ''huge'' can of worms.

* GoddamnedBats: Early worker units become this, especially Probes, who can warp in buildings anywhere instantly and move on to keep running. Terrans can use ranged Marines to shoot them down, zerg and protoss have melee units, so no such luck with them.

* PopularWithFurries: The Zerg have a fan base for those who like scalies from outer space. Hydralisks have an UglyCute [[SnakePeople snake person]] body type and [[spoiler:Kerrigan]] even treats the Hunter Killer strain like her own personal pets. Dehaka has a bipedal dinosauroid figure that has drawn fans, plus in co-op games, he can even transform into a NotZilla form under the right conditions.

* FetishRetardant: Blizzard eventually began turning Infested Kerrigan into a MsFanservice CuteMonsterGirl, with large breasts and buttcheeks, wide hips, high-heels, and it's emphasized that her face looks human enough to still qualify as conventionally beautiful by human standards. However, giving her a curvy figure and pretty face doesn't detract from the fact she has BarbieDollAnatomy with no visible nipples or sexual organs, her body is covered in bone-like spiked armor (including her pelvic region), she has infested tendrils for hair, and VolanicVeins on her collar and face. She's just a bit ''too'' monstrous to find sexually appealing even as a CuteMonsterGirl, which makes her increased sexualization unnerving and gross for some fans.

* FetishRetardant: As much as Blizzard tries to make Kerrigan into MsFanservice as a CuteMonsterGirl, she has BarbieDollAnatomy with no visible nipples or sex organs, spiked protrusions of bone covering her body, infested tendrils for hair, and overall looks a bit ''too'' monstrous to actually be sexually appealing.

* PopularWithFurries: The Zerg have a fan base for those who like scalies from outer space. Hydralisks have an UglyCute [[SnakePeople snake person]] body type and [[spoiler:Kerrigan]] even treats the Hunter Killer strain like her own personal pets. Dehaka has a bipedal dinosauroid figure that has drawn fans as well.

* PopularWithFurries: The Zerg have a fan base for those who like scalies from outer space. Hydralisks have an UglyCute [[SnakePeople snake person]] body type and Kerrigan even treats the Hunter Killer strain like her own personal pets. Dehaka has a bipedal dinosauroid figure that has drawn fans as well.

* StrangledByTheRedString: A lot of fans see the love story between Raynor and Kerrigan as this. To be fair, the game focused more on the battles and the strategy, so we have no idea of what happened between them offscreen. VideoGame/StarCraftII makes a ''much'' better job at fleshing out their relationship.
* TooCoolToLive: [[spoiler: Tassadar, Fenix, Duke, General Warfield and Zeratul.]]

* PopularWithFurries: The Zerg have a fan base for those who like scalies from outer space. The Hydralisk has an UglyCute [[SnakePeople snake person]] body type and Kerrigan even treats the Hunter Killer strain like her own personal pets. Dehaka has a bipedal dinosauroid figure that has drawn fans as well.

** On one camp, Nova is an EnsembleDarkhorse, a character with interesting personal story arc and CharacterDevelopment... which was mostly chronicled in printed works thanks to ''[=StarCraft: Ghost=]'''s cancellation. The other camp, especially those who didn't bother reading her story consider her a wasted space, a tool of Arcturus Mengsk's dictatorial Dominion tyranny, a second rate Ghost compared to Kerrigan and/or '[[MsFanservice only there for fanservice on horny gamers]]'. Debates about Nova's worth in the story can get ugly, and we haven't even getting started on [[BrokenBase her]] [[TierInducedScrappy performance]] in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm''...

-->'''''"Battlecruiser Operational."'''''\\
'''''"Carrier has arrived"'''''\\
'''''"Nuclear Launch Detected"''''' (at least, when it's yours)
** The sound of Interceptors launching is nearly a PreAssKickingOneLiner.
** The sound of a massed group of Siege Tanks transforming, before the ensuing chorus of explosions.

** '''MY WIFE FOR HIRE!'''[[labelnote:Explanation]]{{Mondegreen}}s of various voice clips.[[/labelnote]]

** Examples include elitist "progamers" vs "casual gamer noobs".

* {{Gamebreaker}}:
** Zergling rush was pretty busted in the original game's early days. It took increasing the cost of the Spawning Pool from 150 minerals to 200 minerals to give the Terrans and Protoss more time to effectively counter early Zerglings.
** The original game had no answer to the power of the Mutalisk ball, which is why the ''Brood War'' expansion had to introduce anti-air flying units for each race (Corsair, Valkyrie, and Devourer) just to have a counter against Mutalisk spam.

* JustHereForGodzilla: Some players themselves think NoPlotNoProblem. You do not have to play through the single player campaigns to enjoy the multiplayer aspect of the game. Blizzard eventually acknowledged this by making ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'''s multiplayer free-to-play while keeping all campaigns bar ''[[VideoGame/StarCraftIIWingsOfLiberty Wings of Liberty]]'' as paid content.

-->You must ConstructAdditionalPylons!\\

SPAWN MORE OVERLORDS\\
OMG ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKEKE.\\
Terrible, terrible damage!\\
'''MY WIFE FOR HIRE!'''

* MoralEventHorizon:
** Kerrigan crosses it when she kills Duke and Fenix, particularly the latter. They, along with Raynor and Mengsk, helped her secure control of her Broods and significantly push back the UED's occupation of the sector, and then while they were still recuperating from the siege of Korhal, Kerrigan turned on her allies, killed Duke and Fenix, and decimated their armies. Kerrigan's rationale is a weak concern that they might become a threat to her in the future, even though they had no intent to betray her and just didn't trust her, a fear that Kerrigan completely validates with her treachery. This is a major reason Kerrigan became a BaseBreakingCharacter when ''Heart of the Swarm'' gave her CharacterDevelopment from a VillainProtagonist to a NobleDemon -- after backstabbing and murdering her allies, some fans felt she had no chance to redeem herself and didn't deserve a second chance.
** In-story, Raynor and Kerrigan saw Mengsk using psi emitters to launch a Zerg invasion of Tarsonis as this. If players disagree, then Mengsk definitely crosses it when he sends Kerrigan to intercept the Protoss fleet to stop them from halting the invasion before the Confederacy is totally destroyed, and then when the job is done leaving Kerrigan and his remaining forces to be overrun by the Zerg. The novels reveal that Mengsk knew Kerrigan was the Confederate assassin who killed his family and thus implies his future abandonment of her was a delayed revenge, but Kerrigan was [[BrainwashedAndCrazy under neuro-resocialization]] when she killed the Mengsk family, on her own she was fully loyal to Arcturus and his cause, just expressing some hesitation at his increasingly brutal methods of fighting the Confederacy.
** Arguably, [=DuGalle=] when he sent Duran to kill Stukov. Note that the arguable portion stems from how he was pretty much duped into doing it, and the AlternateCharacterInterpretation that Duran was subtly influencing his mind.

*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSr28cq5_-A Tassadar]], a SuddenlyVoiced [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6OgDnK_AN8 player Executor using Tassadar's portrait]], or even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxN6n5SIT8g the mission objectives]] or some other character or source telling Artanis, Raynor and etc. to "stop simping" for Kerrigan and thwart her plans, especially during Brood War's IdiotPlot. Also generally the act of Executor Nral creating alternate continuities where [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm9QtXNYlwE Kerrigan is thwarted]] and an alternate method of defeating Amon is used (such as the aforementioned scenario of Artanis impaling the dark god with the Spear of Adun).

* {{Gamebreaker}}: The original game had no answer to the power of the Mutalisk ball, which is why the ''Brood War'' expansion had to introduce anti-air flying units for each race (Corsair, Valkyrie, and Devourer) just to have a counter against Mutalisk spam.

* PortingDisaster: The Nintendo 64 is the only console that ''[=StarCraft=] I'' was ported to, and a ''lot'' of compromises had to me bade to fit the original game and the ''Brood War'' expansion onto the cartridge. There's no voice acting for mission briefings or in-game scenes, and unit dialogue is simplified to one or two lines; mission briefings are static portraits with text boxes appearing one at a time, and they all use the Terran briefing room; [=FMVs=] are simplified to still frames with captions; the in-game HUD takes up a very large part of the screen; and playing with a controller is simply not as comfortable as playing with a mouse and keyboard. Further, the game obviously had no internet access and thus online play; the only form of multiplayer was a 2-player mode with a split screen, which obviously is a major complication to an [=RTS=] game when both players can see what the other is doing at all times.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Fans disagree on if Arcturus Mengsk started out as a genuinely well-meaning rebel who fell victim to HeWhoFightsMonsters, or if he was always just interested in personal power and used his rebellion to acquire it. For those that think he started off well-meaning, by the time of his downfall it's obvious he's cast off the pretenses of good intentions behind his evil acts, at which point it's up for discussion ''when'' HeWhoFightsMonsters kicked in. Fans also argue if he's actually AffablyEvil or just FauxAffablyEvil. Helping to feed the discussion is the fact that the writers who have worked on the game scripts and novels for the franchise can't seem to agree on such things themselves.