So, I've recently been doing a playthrough of every campaign on hard, but with the twist of not being able to go above no upkeep, or 20/25 supply, if it was one of those missions where you can't build stuff. Right now, I'm going through all of the Turnro campaigns, and this is the second one that I've just completed (I already know the story, since this is isn't my first time, so I don't mind that this is the campaign is the finale of the story).
This thing definitely took a while a for me to complete, as the maps are all enormous. It felt a lot more like the campaign had 15-18 chapters, rather than 10, and I imagine the development feels the same way too, as the amount of content present in the maps of this campaign is just insane. But that is mostly the charm of the campaign, and is the main reason why it's so fun.
The story and the music felt like the most memorable ones out of basically all campaigns (except The Scourge of Lordaeron, I suppose):
- Night Elven music is simply outstanding. I always love hearing it in a campaign, and I really love listening to it, even while not playing. Though I'm happy that some other tracks were put in too.
- Just like in Rowan's campaign, the music was also used as a tool to establish the atmosphere and show the story. The campaign started out with peaceful and relaxing songs, only to be completely replaced by creepy, somber and epic ones, to represent the downfall of Malfurion, and the giant battles you need to fight.
- A neutral good character turning into a chaotic evil is just simply fun. Was it too sudden and too extreme? Yes, absolutely. But don't forget that a big chunk of the the campaign is still missing, so there will most likely be some explanations to how the power fountains really work. So far, we've got a few hints and guesses, but unlike with Frostmourne, there wasn't anything too on the nose.
- I actually really liked how the story explored the theme of following ambitions vs maintaining relationships. Malfurion's idea was that these two things completely clash, and he would be better off if he removed every single positive relationship from his life, and only made ones that directly benefit him in his journey towards his ambition (which was with Kath'ranis, Velinde and Magtheridon, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, his relationships with these 3 were all very toxic). The moment that perfectly illustrated his worldview was when he was about to kill Kath'ranis, and asked him "Why are you forcing me to end your life when we are close to achieving my ambition?", even though the reason should be very obvious (and not to mention, he wasn't forced to do that, but giving his people freedom didn't even occur to him as a possibility, cus he would see it as either pointless or a net negative in the long run). And the dark irony is that he was right, as leaving everyone behind has gotten him everything he wanted... yet he was still unhappy, as now the entire world is lashing out at him, so he lashes back at the entire world. Which is why the story ended with literally every single character dying, with the exception of Malfurion Stormrage.
- I'm hoping that the Sentinel storyline will focus more on the "maintaining relationships" part, as the Highborne storyline wasn't exactly showing the benefits of choosing that, even if it could hold you back.
- What I also found interesting about Malfurion is that unlike the demons, he didn't actually take pleasure in backstabbing his kin (the whole blood thing with Velinde is a bit of an exception, as that was more of an experiment, and it was the only time he didn't actually kill a night elf, and Illidan is also different, as he already hated him before). He just simply did his evil things because he believed that it was necessary. And you can tell that he wasn't happy about it, by how he called his path difficult, and how he referred to his actions as "sacrifices" in the last chapter.
- And lastly, I'd like to mention that Malfurion had some amazing quotes. Seriously, this is some Arcane levels of quotability. My personal favorite is "There is no such thing as fair, Velinde. There are but two words of consequence: win and loose"
The gameplay was great. It was arguably better than in The Adventures of Rowan the Wise, which says a lot:
- As I've said before, the maps were extremely lengthy. But they were designed in a pretty smart way, as they were all split up into smaller sections, so the player isn't just doing the same exact same thing for over an hour, and there's actually a feeling of progress.
- The one problem that I've had with a few of the maps is how they sometimes tend to completely close off players from backtracking into the previous sections. If you're a mapmaker, I recommend that you try to avoid this as much as possible (which Blizzard actually did a really good job at), as nothing feels worse than seeing an area that you forgot to explore, but is now inaccessible.
- The addition of the backpack was extremely smart, and it made the item management a lot less frustrating (it gets pretty rough on hard, with all of those legendary and artifact items that you have to carry). I liked how the slots open up as the player progresses throughout the campaign, so it can't be abused early on.
- How crap, it's a Warcraft 3 campaign that has a multitude of boss fights, and most of them are actually very good, unique and fun! This is actually a very impressive feat, as a lot of creators struggle with this, and it was the biggest weak point of the default campaigns.
- The highborne. I always liked the role that these guys played in the lore of Warcraft, though we've mostly seen them as the Naga (which is an awesome race, mind you). I felt a ton of hype when I saw that there was a campaign where these guys are the main player race, and they really lived to my expectations, becoming my all time favorite custom Warcraft 3 race.
- Similarly to Tomoraider's Forsaken, these guys also have a strong gameplay connection to two other races (those being the high/blood elves and the night elves), while still having their own theme (which is spellcasting). Their gameplay also represents their ego, as they're fully focused on not playing fair to make up for their lack of physical strength, basically making them the perfect thematic opposite to the orcs (which makes them extremely fun to play as, but pretty annoying to play against). They also have clear strengths, as they're really good at shutting down some enemies, while having the best control, and sneaking ability. But they also have clear weaknesses, as a Highborne army without mana is basically worthless, and most of their units are rather squishy.
- I appreciate that all of the other races have got a bit of a revamp as well. The night elves, the naga, the demons and the corrupted are all very similar to their original iterations, but they each have some new tricks up their sleeves, which makes them refreshing to use and to fight.
There weren't that many heroes that we could use. But the ones we got were pretty good:
- Just like The Adventures of Rowan the Wise, this campaign also uses a different hero system. It's exactly like in that campaign, except that your fourth basic ability can now be leveled up, but only three times. And in turn, you don't have the ability to level up all stats anymore. Yeah, I don't know why these two campaigns need their own special hero skill leveling system, while the other two just use the default one, but hey, it only makes things more fun.
- Originally, Malfurion's kit (the Keeper of the Grove kit) was centered around the theme of plants. Plants do everything slowly and consistently, which is why Furion's spells were all consistent healing or damage sources. The Malfurion of this campaign focuses more around the transition itself. Basically, the Arch Druid Malfurion is centered around preservation, the Corrupted Ancient Malfurion is centered around destruction, and the Arch Sage Malfurion is a fusion between these two (as Kath'ranis pointed out in the third chapter). His playstyle also got more high - risk, high - reward over time, as he had to get closer and closer to enemies for his kit to be used effectively, which is a nice touch.
- Kath'ranis' kit is honestly one of my favorite intelligence hero kits out there. There's actually quite a bit of depth that goes into his gameplay, if you're looking to get the most out of him, and his versatility is through the roof. A 1 second cooldown Spell Steal with 0 mana cost honestly feels very dumb (but in a hilarious way), but other than that, he's an absolutely perfect hero.
- Velinde felt... ok, but nothing beyond that. She's absolutely a solid hero, and she has the clear theme of being a fast auto attacker that also offers some protection to her army. But for the most part, she was just kind of there, as her abilities just weren't all that impactful or satisfying (with the exception of her ultimate). Again, she's not bad, but I'd definitely be happy if she got changed a bit.
- Magtheridon being so big is both a blessing and a curse. I believe it affects the radius of abilities like Fire Shield (when put on him), War Stomp and Cleaving Attack (though I'm not 100% sure), but pathing could sometimes get quite rough. Anyhow, his kit good. War Stomp naturally fits the Pit Lord pretty well, and I honestly didn't understand why Pit Lords originally got Doom, while the Dreadlords got Inferno, which should have been the other way around, so it's neat that he has Inferno here.
Now, I'm going to mention a few other things that the campaign has going for it. Buuuut I also have to mention one negative thing, which is:
- Bugs. There's quite a few of them here. There aren't so many that they ruin the experience, but they're definitely noticeable. And I guess a lot of them happened because I played on version 1.31, which is known to be extremely buggy, but you don't really get to make the "awful patch" excuse when that is literally the only version where the campaign even appears on the selection menu. Here are some of the most noticeable bugs:
- Sometimes during cinematics, the camera is placed right behind a tree or a doodad, blocking the player's vision of the scene and the characters.
- Casting Malfurion's Fire Shield before a cinematic could make the ability have a permanent duration, like a Cloak of flames but with more damage. Entering another cinematic afterwards should remove it though.
- Cinematics often cancel the Mana Shield ability of battle maidens. This was particularly annoying in the third chapter with the furbolg cinematic.
- The spider book artifact item literally disappeared from Velinde's inventory at the start of chapter 8. I've put it into the top-left position of her inventory in chapter 7, and it was just gone in the next mission (normally, I'd be reporting this in my chapter review, but I feel like this was a little too impactful)
- Magtheridon's infernal doesn't benefit from upgrades. Now, you may think this is fine, but the "0" is clearly present in the spot where the current armor and damage upgrade tier is shown. And it stays at 0 no matter what.
- Some demons can be damaged by the active of Master Scepter of Healing, while some can't. I understand that this is mostly an oversight from Blizzard, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
- It's technically not a bug or an unintended problem, but the buildings in a lot of micro missions don't actually have the heavy armor type, but they instead keep the fortified one. That's not actually the case in some of the micro missions of the other Turnro campaigns, so I'm reporting this.
- This might not have an effect on the gameplay, but I noticed some weird items, called "PathingItem" that are placed in inaccessible locations, and now I'm curious. What's the purpose of these? Here's the screenshots of the two I found.
- Now that we're done with the bugs that I've noticed, I'll list some good things I didn't mention before:
- The legendary items are a great addition, and they actually make hard difficulty more interesting and fun, without making everything easy by being too powerful.
- Difficulty selection at the start of every chapter is something I'll always praise, and prefer over the inconsistent system that Blizzard put in.
- The terrain of this campaign is awesome. It's extremely detailed, and the maps all felt very well crafted.
- The color changes on the interface border thingy are great, and I really liked how the little loading screen map changed after the portal blew up, and the highborne built their own city. Just little details to make things feel more fleshed out.
And now, it's time to get into my thoughts regarding these big and lengthy chapters:
CHAPTER 1 - This is definitely one of the longest first missions I've seen, beaten only by King Arthas and Defenders of Dwarvenkind, while breaking about even with Misconceptions (only if you're exploring there, of course). It's definitely a great introduction to the campaign, as it does a really good job at showing what you could expect from the rest of it. It's a very simple, yet a very well made map. I liked the Force of Nature secrets/puzzles, especially because they weren't so hidden that the player has to frantically look everywhere to find the goodies behind trees. The Moon Wells being usable is also an absolute blessing, especially for a low level intelligence hero that doesn't have great items yet. The only thing I would change, is that I'd put in another tree behind the prison gate, because some people might fail to destroy the generator in time (or in my case, decide against it due to the 25 supply limit challenge, and come back later after some of my units die), only to find out that it isn't possible to spawn trees behind the gate a second time.
CHAPTER 2 - Another long, but simple micro mission, except with high gr
ound towers and glaive launchers to reinforce the theme of "not playing fair to make up for their lack of physical strength" that the highborne are based around. Some more Force of Nature secrets/puzzles makes me a very happy man. One thing that I expected was that the quest with the oracle would have time limit, since he talked about how he's dying very fast, and we need to hurry to save him, but I'm thankful that it wasn't timed (especially because it was a side quest). This map was also just simply good, with the exception of the Kath'ranis boss fight, which seemed to have been broken, since I don't think he used all of his spells, and he didn't call for reinforcements either, so he went down extremely fast. I tried reloading multiple times to get the normal fight that I rem
embered from past playthroughs/versions, only to get the laughably easy one every single time.
CHAPTER 3 - Finally, the journey of Malfurion and his night elf squad is coming to a conclusion. For how much Rowan's campaign likes to throw you around different places, this one has sure been pretty stagnant so far (not that I'd mind). I liked the introduction to Firewave (the ability you'll probably be pressing a few hundred, maybe even thousand times) and Mystic Affinity, as you get them in the exact situations that you need them in, while Crystal Golem and Fire Shield felt more like "yeah, now you got a new ability, you can use it I guess". For the Fire Shield introduction, I would remove some of the bigger spiders and add some more small ones, and for the Crystal Golem one, I would actually put down magical traps that the player could trigger with the golem (and it would actually make sense, because the golems were summoned by an insane wizard, which we know from the sentinel path of a Beta version). Arcane Explosion is kind of a bait in the chase section, but hey, there's a reason why players are warned to save. The macro section with the highborne though, was unironically the
biggest challenge I've had in the entire campaign. The tech difference between the player and the opponent is just absurd, and master rank enchantresses are an absolute pain. Both the corrupted furbolgs and Illidan's highborne had an enormous army, so getting rid of them was extremely rough, especially when their individual units are simply better than mine, and my heroes weren't stacked with legendaries and artifacts yet. Overall, the last section really tested my skills, and forced multiple reloads, especially when Arcane Explosion got cancelled by Counterspell (so yeah, I wouldn't mind it if the enemies were toned down a little).
CHAPTER 4 PART 1 - If you think that CH4 has multiple parts because they're short (like CH7 in Legacy of the Damned), then I'd have to inform you that you're wrong. I think the only reason behind the two parts is that Turnro has a weird obsession with putting exactly 10 chapters to all of his campaigns, and since the fifth map happens minutes after the fourth (in the story), he simply connected them as one chapter. Anyhow, I really like this map. I think it's cool that the player gets a choice, about whether he wants to destroy the outposts with his small force, or if he wants to play it safe and sneaky, releasing the corrupted creeps on them instead. Though to my knowledge, the choice doesn't actually have a consequence (even if you don't release the creeps when destroying the bases yourself, which is actually kind of funny), so I just went with the corrupted creep option, as I wanted a break from the stress of the previous mission. I think the Astranaar section was pretty neat, and I liked how the Sentinels are having this battle against the corrupted to try and cure the forest, while you're off, looking for items, recruits and money. I do have a memory of a legendary item being dropped by a hero that guards the base that the Sentinels are sieging, but I guess it's in a different place now, and it's nice that Malfurion actually tells you that there's nothing inside the base, so attacking it with your allies is pointless.
CHAPTER 4 PART 2 - This is a chill/relaxing level that felt much more like an OutsiderXE map than a Turnro map. I liked how there's actually a Potion of Invisibility that you can grab in the first section, in case the you loose the highmistress before you get to the forcefield (though I'd never let that happen, as these ladies are the absolute MvP of this campaign, and they carried me pretty hard). The puzzles in the Kath'ranis section were quite nice, as they weren't
too obvious, but most people shouldn't be forced to look up YouTube videos to deal with em. Having Mass Teleport also makes things very forgiving, which I appreciate. One funny interaction that I found, is that placing an Orb of Sight near the forcefield's location actually keeps the wall there until the orb is gone. Overall, I think this is a very unique and very lovely mission, and to really hammer the latter one in, the treasure vault is freaking
smiley face (seriously, there's
no way that wasn't intentional).
CHAPTER 5 - So, as someone who played a Beta version of the campaign, seeing the difference between the old and new versions of this chapter was quite interesting. Back then, Velinde was actually your
ally, and there are still a few traces of that, as the inactive, but invulnerable guardian base at the top was one that you actually had to save as part of a sidequest, and you still have to work together with Velinde on the final boss fight (though not having the ability to help her with Restoration Shell and Resurrection is a pain). But I assume that she was changed to be your enemy, in order to fit the characters, the story, and the quests better (the horn race was actually present in the past version too, which didn't make much sense, though the blood quest and the infinite Moon Well mechanic wasn't actually there). As for the current gameplay itself, it was alright. This wasn't really the most iconic level of the campaign, but it held up just fine, and it definitely had some decent unique ideas. The macro section was fairly easy thanks to the fact that Velinde and the purple base were completely distracting each other, leaving me in a 1v1 against brown. And the Invisibility + Mass Teleport combo made it so that I didn't even have to touch the purple base to get the last obelisk.
CHAPTER 6 SUBMAP - Oh hey, the first submap of my challenge runs. And from what I've seen, the Sentinel path is going to have a whole bunch of them, so that's quite lovely. I think the idea behind this one is really interesting, because most of the time, the player gains resources by simply waiting, but now he needs to actually find and kill enemies in order to build up a base and an army. The corrupted treant techtree is very simple but also kind of weak, so I'm glad that there's a Mercenary Camp on this map. I don't really much to say here, this is just a fun little map that players should 100% explore, especially because there are tomes here, so you're guaranteed to get rewarded.
CHAPTER 6 - If the other maps are giants, then this one is a goddamn goliath. There's just so much happening here. We have the Demon Hunter quest (RIP Loramus), the druids of the jaw (I wish we're gonna see them in the Sentinel path), the search for the highborne, the Velinde instance, and finally, the whole deal with Illidan and the naga. And all of it was really well executed. Though it's kinda funny to think what would have happened if the naga didn't show up when Velinde ambushed Malfurion, and he just flat out died right there (seriously though, his luck is actually quite crazy). Oh, and those new naga casters (I think they were called the "naga tidemistress", implying that they're transformed highmisteresses) are just awful, and I was so happy when I rescued the arcane wyrms and Kath'ranis, so that I could finally remove their dumb shenanigans and make them benefit me. (See what I said about the highborne not playing fair? It's awesome when I use them, though)
CHAPTER 7 - The idea of a mission where you shift sides mid-way is quite interesting, and very rarely used (I only remember seeing it in CH2 of Rise of the Lich King). The stealth section was neat, especially because Mass Teleport made it a whole lot easier. The good thing is, that despite highmistresses being absent in the first section (which I completely understand), they were still available in the second one, so I could do an Invisibility + Mass Teleport combo one last time, to bypass the insane army of Malfurion's base, and destroy the generators without damaging the other buildings. The one thing I didn't understand is why Kath'ranis' base and units joined, as I don't imagine that there was time to make them drink the blood, and there's no way they would be ok with doing that, so unless the whole thing about them being free was a lie, I don't see how this makes sense (not that I'd mind having an extra base, though). Destroying the shivarra bases was surprisingly difficult, and I'm
pretty sure that there's some kind of trigger that reduces the downtime between the attacks if one of the two bases gets destroyed, which I suspect is also present in the last chapter of Rowan's campaign (I think its effectiveness should be reduced on both missions btw). I've got no complaints about the faceoff against Mother Shahraz though, her taking control of my units one by one was sick.
CHAPTER 8 - You really just had to make the Cenarian Circle attack with air units in a huge map, where my base is at the very bottom, and I don't have access to Mass Teleport? It was pretty annoying, having to constantly backtrack, and then tower spam, but I've been playing Warcraft 3 for a while, so at this point, I just got used to this. Anyways, I think the obelisk quest was a really interesting way to design a macro mission that limits the player's time, though I wouldn't mind it if the first two got a little more time, as I couldn't notice a few creep camps to the side, cus I was forced to hurry. I also really appreciate the fact that the player is allowed to miss out on 1 obelisk, even if it means that the fourth one is completely pointless if he got the first 3 (but I do get why it isn't skipped, since getting attacked about 15 minutes earlier would suck). The pathing becomes quite rough after the you find Ysera's hearth though, as there are now 2 enormous heroes instead of 1, so getting through some of the tiny passageways that are standing between you and the last few enemies is just annoying. The Cenarius bossfight was a little long and a bit boring compared to the rest, but the events that were occurring during it were enough to make it at least decent. But overall, I think this was a fun mission, that felt pretty unique thanks to all the weird quirks that the map had, and how navigating around it wasn't as simple as "just walk around some terrain until you reach your destination".
CHAPTER 9 - Man, if this isn't a perfect representation of what Malfurion was working for, then I don't know what is. A giant battle, where everyone is looking to kill him, as he's just a making a run for the Well of Eternity. Though for some reason, this map just didn't have that "big tug of war" feeling that maps like "A Symphony of Frost and Flame", "By Demons be Driven", "Trial of Monsters" or "The Frozen Throne" had (I don't know why this is the case, but it just didn't feel like those). But one thing is for sure: this map was quite challenging, as I had to endure constant attack waves from two bases that are completely invulnerable, and those two light blue night elf bases were extremely hard to deal with, and basically forced me to go highmistress spam for some Town Hall/worker sniping with the help of Invisibility and Clone on Malfurion. It was still easier than CH3, though. The boss fights that followed were fairly easy, though Azshara's tornadoes gave me a bit of trouble (I have no idea what they even do, but they follow me at a decently fast speed, and I just get destroyed when they're on top of me). The Medivh fight was laughable, as the real one always had a glow, while the clones didn't, so I just spammed attacks on the main one, which caused him to hit Mirror Image non-stop until he ran out of mana. I think the glow indication should be fixed, and if he casts Chain Lightning, then it would be better if all of the clones played the animation too, without actually doing damage (similarly to how Chaos Knight and Phantom Lancer work in DotA with their ranged projectiles).
CHAPTER 10 - Ok, at first, the fact that Kil'jaeden has got so far ahead of Malfurion has confused the heck out of me (since we're only shown the main entrance and the secret water entrance). The caves definitely do a great job at explaining why that happened, but at this point, I'm just wondering why Medivh didn't set up the defenses inside, when both Kil'jaeden and Azshara have circumvented them so easily. Also, Malfurion mentioned that he could use the tunnels to his advantage. Am I missing something, or did that just simply not happen at all? (I guess he used them to escape after he transformed...?) The mission itself was a very unique one, as I don't think I've ever seen a finale for a campaign where you're using only the main character, with no units or secondary heroes/characters accompanying you (not even Lord of the Clans and The Last Guardian does this, which is quite ironic). But if there's one campaign where this fits in perfectly, it is Malfurion's Quest. The encounters with the normal units were extremely easy, though that was probably the point (you'd need a massive army of high tier units to deal with Malfurion here). I really liked the nightmare section, especially because of the implications about how these are all constantly happening in Malfurion's subconscious mind (it's reflected quite well with how the characters are all trying to shame him... and with Faradrella's dialogue xd). Also, this was just a really smart way to do callbacks to previous chapters, literally putting the player back into a location that he explored in the past, but with a different view now. The boss fights were great, with Ysera being a little too easy (except for the fact that invulnerable Ysera could get you stuck with those invisible barriers... please remove those), Kil'jaeden being a little too strong (as he should be), and Illidan most likely forcing an unprepared player for at least 1 reload after the Well of Eternity circles suddenly start working differently, which kind of caught me off guard.
Aaaaaaand that's it for my Malfurion's Quest review! I certainly went a little long with this one, but it's only fitting for a campaign that can also take a very long time to complete (it was between 2 to 3 weeks for me, and I played at least 30 minutes almost every day, but usually more). This thing has managed to achieve some absolutely impressive feats, and it's only a little bit behind The Adventures of Rowan the Wise, thanks to all the bugs I've encountered. It's still an awesome 9/10 campaign, that I would recommend to anyone who likes campaigns that offer a bit of challenge, and is willing to invest a ton of time into a specific one. And also, to people that have a thing for playing as a chaotic evil (I certainly do, it's just annoying how everyone in the game hates me when I'm a CE
)
Thank you all for reading, and I wish Turnro good luck in the development of the Sentinel path! I hope you all have a great day and night!
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