YMMV / Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds

• Arc Fatigue: So you were expecting to experience the Battle of Naboo from the Gungans' perspective, and fight the battle droids straight away? Well, guess what: You'll have to complete three Old Republic-era missions set around Boss Nass' ancestor, Gallo, and the War of the Gungan Tribes first. The Gungan campaign has six missions, plus a seventh non-canon bonus mission. That means that half of the campaign is dedicated to this relatively unrelated war. It doesn't help that the hero that the campaign is named for is Boss Nass and not Gallo.
• Complete Monster: Pekt is a Trandoshan renowned and feared, even by the standards of his brutal race, as a Wookiee-hating sadist. A lover of inflicting pain since his youth, in which he terrorized and tormented household servants, Pekt turned his predilections towards Wookiees in his later years, creating the biggest Wookiee slave-trading operation in the galaxy solely to slake his enjoyment for hurting them. Pekt could wipe out entire Wookiee villages in days' times, using his free time between missions to torture his prisoners, and when he is approached by the Empire to help control the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, Pekt creates the "Avatar Orbital Station" as a massive slave camp designed for imprisoning and separating Wookiee families. Pekt's ultimate goal is to depopulate Kashyyyk of all Wookiee presence, swearing that by the time he's done, every last Wookiee in the galaxy will be "a slave or a pelt".
• Demonic Spiders
  • The bursas from the Gungans campaign. They are very fast, can tear down a building in mere seconds, and are just as deadly in combat.
  • Jedi or Sith Masters in the standard game are an ordeal to fight. While they cost a considerable amount of nova crystals to produce, they have great speed, a large amount of hit points and armor, can regenerate those hit points if left alone, and dish out high damage to nearly all units (mechs in particular). Worst of all, they can mind trick (convert, as in Age of Empires) your own units to their side ^note And unlike Age Of Empires monks, Jedi Masters, and even Knights, are quite durable . Certain techs even allow them to do this to certain buildings and heavy units, meaning that Assault Mech you had moving to attack the enemy is now firing at your own infantry lines, a Troop Center you built is now producing enemy units OR that Jedi Master of your own has turned to the Dark Side. They even can gain stealth as well (though this is not quite as bad since the detection skill is surprisingly common but they still can jump you if you're not expecting it). The best way to deal with them are Bounty Hunters, who have an attack bonus against them but are otherwise impractical for pitched combat, and large massed groups of repeater infantry, who have a ton of blaster bolts and low unit value, but even then, they can cause a great deal of problems.
  • Most unique units can fit into this as well. Special mention goes to the Destroyer Droid, T-47 Airspeeder, Wookie Berserker, Royal Crusader, and Geonosian Warrior (if you are a trooper or worker).
• Ensemble Dark Horse: See here.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: See here.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Unlike Age of Empires II, the game's equivalent of gold and stone, nova and ore respectively, require separate buildings to mine. Furthermore, the game's buildings require Protoss-like power cores to function at full capacity.
• Tear Jerker: The first Gungan mission has Boss Gallo finish hunting for Nerfs for his village...and then Bursas attack, and he (along with the player) is forced to watch helplessly as Otoh Sancture is literally torn to pieces by the hulking beasts, until Gallo is the only one left. Sure, Marsune gives him worker Glurgs to help him rebuild the village, but it's still very unsettling considering the implications of the loss of life that was experienced just prior.
• That One Level
  • The bonus mission for the OOM-9 campaign, where it shows an alternate Battle of the Grassy Plains that the Trade Federation won, is surprisingly difficult. The Gungans both outrange and outnumber you and if you're not careful their artillery can tear you to shreds. Not helping things is there's a bottleneck towards the end which can become a death trap for your already depleted force. This bottleneck happens to be chock full of Grenade Troopers, Assault Mechs and Mobile Shield Generators. The only consolation is that by this point you get Darth Maul, whom is effective at taking down these enemies.
  • Mission 6 of the Boss Nass campaign, The Liberation of Harte Secur, is pure insanity. While the first half of the mission - rescuing some fambaas from the Trade Federation - isn't too bad, the second half is. The game clearly expects you to stage a ground assault and fight through ludicrous amount of droids to destroy the enemy Command Center, which is extremly difficult due to their sheer numbers and shield generators placed everywhere. The number of anti-air turrets set-up also means that an air assault would be rendered ineffective.
  • Both of the Empire's bonus missions count to this:
    • Bonus Mission 1 requires you to storm Cloud City and defeat all the Rebel forces inside while also holding control of multiple Gravity Control Generators. Because Cloud City has no natural resources, you're essentially forced to Rape, Pillage, and Burn Cloud City and its Storehouses for a limited number of resources, forcing players to manage their troops well to avoid wasting the limited number of resources.
    • Bonus Mission 2 is probably even more brutal. It's a desperate Hold the Line mission where you need to protect the Endor Shield Generator for a while (ranging from 15 minutes on easy to 40 on hard). You are surrounded everywhere by Rebel forces whom will almost immediately launch attacks against your defenses. In addition, most of your Nova Crystal and Ore deposits are located right in the path of the Rebel assaults, negatively impacting your economy.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Mahwi Lihnn, the bounty hunter hero for the Trade Federation. Anyone that has read the novel Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter will know Mahwi is female. But in Galactic Battlegrounds, she's voiced by Roger Jackson with a raspy voice. To an extent, there's also Excellency Lathe Parthenian, who is clearly meant to be female but she has the same icon as the male Hanoon soldiers.