So some months ago I was going through my collection of oldies and reinstalling some that I've never listened to in Roland modes just to see what they sound like. I came across Warcraft, the first one, and was actually quite stunned with the soundtrack in Sound Canvas mode. Everybody remembers the 2nd game's music but the first one's is mostly forgotten - I couldn't even find a recording of the main theme on Youtube. This gave me the urge to replay the game - something I haven't done since the mid-90s - and while I stand by my comments about the music, I can see why the game itself was so quickly forgotten. It's frankly not very good. At its core it's an obvious ripoff of Dune 2, with small changes here and there (the way resources work, base-less "dungeon crawl" missions as well as that one rescue mission, spells and researching them) but not enough to disguise the fact most of the challenge comes from wrestling with a terrible interface and with an AI that's braindead but cheats outrageously. The UI in particular is so bad I gave up beating this fairly. Still it's amusing to see events that would eventually become core Warcraft lore (such as Doomhammer's betrayal of Blackhand, though the former isn't actually named yet, or Medivh's death, though again Khadgar didn't exist yet), or things that would be furiously retconned later (demons having nothing to do with the Burning Legion, the Shadow Council helping Doomhammer overthrow Blackhand). Still, other than as a curiosity and the music, there's not much of worth here.
This did however get me to install Warcraft 2 instead, which I also hadn't played in well over a decade. I expected to similarly have forgotten that this wasn't as good as I remember, but to my surprise I felt the opposite, I had actually forgotten how damn good Warcraft 2 is. The UI still has some quirks but they're a lot more manageable, and the core gameplay is a lot more solid. The 2 factions are still too similar, but the small differences do make more significant gameplay differences this time. Whereas I had expected it to get tedious eventually, naval warfare is a lot more fun than I remember, and having to build your invasion force in 2 steps does add a certain layer of planning and satisfaction as you execute the phases. Both campaigns are quite easy; the only mission that gave me some trouble was the final human one at the dark portal, since you get attacked by dragons quite early on and you start with no base and no real way to defend against them, other than a handful of archers. Still the missions are well designed and have quite a bit of variety; "map design" really is a thing in an RTS, and doubly so in one that has both ground and naval warfare. So many of them are memorable, whether due to the terrain features (cross-shaped Dalaran, twisty waterways and mountains at Tomb of Sargeras and Dark Portal) or the layout of the enemy bases. It's a classic game for a reason and it's still fun to play.
Next I tackled the expansion, remembering it to be more than just more-of-the-same, and it is. Hero units are used a lot more extensively than I remember, and while they're mostly just souped-up versions of normal units, in some missions they're the only source of certain abilities (such as Turalyon being the only paladin in some missions where you can't upgrade knights). Missions and map design are just as good or even better than the base game. However I feel the expansion ramps up too quickly. The 2nd mission is already much more difficult than anything in the base game, the AI has the advantage of superior numbers (MUCH more superior), still cheats outrageously, and seems to play much more aggressively. I understand why they went this way, the expansion is clearly designed for those who found the base game too easy (and it is easy). I just wish they'd gone with a smoother curve, have maybe the 2nd act be as hard as the OC's last. Difficulty levels would've also been nice but this was long before they were commonplace in these kinds of games. It doesn't help that I'm generally pretty bad at RTS games, despite liking a few of them quite a lot. As it is I eventually found the difficulty of later missions too tedious and gave up. A shame because the mission design is really quite stellar.
I'm curious to see how Warcraft 3 holds up now.
Oh also waiting for ELEX While replaying old games like Fallout NV and Icewind dale
.
