Finally, third and final chapter of the game. Long awaited ending of saga. Too bad it all ended in such a way.
Legacy Of The Void (LOTV from now on) is the weakest of all three games. For yet another two years (which combined bring us to 17 years since the release of first Starcraft) we get something that could have been done in six months. This expansion brings new campaign, new balance and handful of units. This is not something special either since it is overshadowed by its predecessor HOTS in every aspect.
GRAPHICS: Clearly now, this game looks the same as it looked five years ago, and it looks dated, very, very dated. A handful of RTS games that came out this year look so polished and nice compared to this one. Even cut scenes look badly rendered and low quality. The problem with Zerg is not present in Protoss in the way of unit difference. Every unit looks different and is very creative but this should have been done from the very start, back in 2010, not now, five years later. Still, Blizzard could have updated the game to look at least a little bit nicer. Problem with brown zergs and shaking terran vehicles is still there.
SOUND: Same old, same old, music is good, voice acting is top notch, nothing to criticize since there is nothing to. The only thing that is bad is the dialogue, Protoss talk in this appreciation tone and way which starts to get on your nerves after about three missions. But still, you can tell when a protoss carrier explodes apart from terran command center. That is how good it is.
GAMEPLAY: Skirmish and multiplayer is still the same, cool units are campaign only sadly, unit cap is still there (will they ever learn?) and base defenses are still useless. I also noticed that there is no squishing. Squishing is when you order your vehicles to drive over infantry in order do squash them like bugs, but sadly due to famed "balance" this never came to any of the games. In most of the RTS games there are tiers which can run over each other. Also heavy infantry is heavy for the reason, they can't be squished, here that could be implemented so well yet it is missing. Imagine siege tank or thor squashing zergling like grapes.
Campaign by far is the worst of all three. Every mission there is some kind of time limit. Yes there are some of those in HOTS and WOL but there are also others, non-time limited. Here 90% of them are time limited. There is just a few missions which are interesting, all others are just "Enemy units are marching towards our Nexus point, we must hold out for x amount of time before cutscene appears and saves us all". Also, every bloody bonus mission has solarite for reward. Dear god could you be more creative? In the very beginning of the game, your engineer (phase smith) states that your flagship works on solarite (rare element) which is ancient and nobody still uses it, yet every bonus objective tells you to destroy something in order to extract solarite from it?!?
The game ends horribly, I won't spoil it but it feels as if they ran out of ideas and went with the first pitched idea. After you complete the campaign, you will be prompted that you still have 3 more missions to complete. This is where I just typed in a cheat for god mode. Those three are the most boring missions in the entire Starcraft franchise, bar none.
Last three ones were more of a chore than entertainment for me. First one is familiar "hold the Nexus point for time limit", second one is destroy everything red on map and third one destroy seven crystals to end the mission. From the exquisite last WOL mission, to the Zerus arc of HOTS to this teaming pile of three wrapping up missions.
After this you get a message, if you read between the lines, that this is the final de facto ending of Starcraft saga.
If you really want to play this game, play multiplayer or skirmish, they are still of the same quality as before 5 years. If you came for the story, start campaign and at the start of every mission press enter and type in "terribleterribledamage" to enable god mode so you can get through it as fast as possible.
Fans will be angry since they waited more than 17, SEVENTEEN years in order to see how it all ends, and in the end they get this rushed story.
Dated graphics, illogical and weak story make this game only multiplayer worthy, but multiplayer is not everything, game needs an essence, a story and this one surely lost its own somewhere between 1998. and 2015.