SpellForce 3 (PC) Review

SpellForce 3 is an example of the reverse of many games being 'greater than the sum of its parts;' that is to say that this is less than the sum of its parts. Each part on its own is either functional or actually good, but the mish-mash of the aspects comes off as simply 'missing something.' This is not saying that that it isn't good, it just never fires on all cylinders.

The easiest way to explain how it all works is a comparison with more well-known titles, like StarCraft or Warcraft III. The game focuses far more on small squad battles than full-on RTS. It feels very, very similar to the 'squad' missions in StarCraft, having a limited group of people as you move around the map getting story updates and finding paths.

Primarily controlling a small group of heroes, the RPG aspects is this regard are similar to Warcraft III in that they level up, learn skills, and can equip items. This is much deeper in this regard, as well. Each character has various equipment slots - ranging from a dual-wielding soldier, to bows for an archer, to a mage that wears armour, a necklace, and so on. Each character has three different skill trees; these range from leadership buffs and combat moves, to white magic.

A major change in pacing is when it switches to real-time strategy mode, such as finding a small base and making the people start mining and building an army. If there is one major weakness with SpellForce 3 it is this section. The resource gathering is very barebones. Build the lumber mill to get wood, the fishery for food, and so on. One pleasing thing is there is a button on each building to remotely assign workers to it, which is a feature more games should use. Despite all this, it 'works' but there isn't much to really do beyond set some guys working and build an army.

The graphics are surprisingly good. There seems to be some optimisation problem, though, as it lags pretty badly and might need changing to lower settings. Even the option menu mentions things about 'having a bad time' if using on-board graphics chips.

The real problem, though, is with the way heroes are built. Their equipment, and so on, makes it more suited for a turn-based, or a single-character, experience. Battles simply are too chaotic to realistically have multiple single characters casting single-target spells. This is where the divide really is shown; players have these deep heroes to customise, but in battle the huge groups and AoE moves are the only ones worth using. The time put into highly deep characters just does not matter when its 50 on 50.