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SpellForce 3 Reforced + Soul Harvest & Fallen God standalone expansions

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
How's the replay value?

There are many choices with consequences of varying size so I'll be glad to do a new play and see how things can play out differently, eventually.
Yeah even some companions effect the missions. Still the game have at least two playtroughs.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
I just tried playing the Skirmish mode and got my ass handed to me by a Normal AI. It was pretty good. The AI was completely different than in the campaign mode. Instead of attacking my outpost directly it attacked my outpost with a majority of units and used a small handful of dudes to kill my workers, which didn't happen in the campaign. When I came with a bigger army the enemy AI immediately retreated and regrouped with a smaller unit of troops so they could fight equally and then held its ground vs me until its hero unit, a fire mage, came and broke me since my army was already weakened. The heroes are different and not as powerful as in the Campaign so having a good army is completely necessary here. I'm actually surprised at how different the Skirmish feels like compared with the Campaign. For those who want the true RTS experience, Skirmish seems to deliver quite nicely. Give it a try.

Edit: AI doesn't seem to cheat in Skirmish mode either.
 
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Alienman

Retro-Fascist
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17,046
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Mars
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Should just port over that AI then!

By the way, the ending is really bittersweet when you know what comes for our dear companions. Got to wonder what happened to the main protagonist though, did history just forget about him?
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
Should just port over that AI then!

By the way, the ending is really bittersweet when you know what comes for our dear companions. Got to wonder what happened to the main protagonist though, did history just forget about him?

There's most likely going to be DLC so hopefully they'll bridge the gap between SF3 and SF1. I was sure that the game was going to end with everyone betraying Tahar or something, especially seeing how Isgrimm was clearly losing it already due to his gross fetishization of the Shapers. A really nice touch, I thought, was how Isgrimm was sperging to Tahar over how great their culture was because everyone had free health care, and then Tahar's mother just bluntly tells you that it was only reserved for the top elite some hours later.

I really hope these guys get the chance to work on a Spellforce 4, hopefully a sequel to SF2 this time.
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,432
Liking the game so far. Got to the point where I have to choose spec and tearing myself up between elemental and black.

If I'm itching for a bit more Spellforce after I finish it, which of the dozen previous game+exp would be a good start?
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
Spellforce 1 is fine. It has a veeeeery slow start, though, you'll start having fun at around the 4-5th map, which is 10ish hours in, depending on how good you are at the RTS part.
 

Toffeli

Atomkrieg, ja bitte
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Feb 24, 2011
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Nordic Mongolia
Wasteland 2
So now I am stuck. I'm at the second battle at the Foot of Barga Gor. Abandoned the mission on the first time since I got my ass whooped and did the mission with the elves, the medusa Island and the sand temple or whatever the fuck it was. I was stupid enough to go to the world map after talking to Gor and now I can't talk to the three orc dudes I'm supposed to before the battle. I can't get to them since there is now some strange off limits area between the fortress and the rest of the map. Not really keen on the idea to load a previously saved game and play all those maps again.
:negative:

Well I guess I could just skip the whole orc questline?
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
You don't have to do the mission if you don't wanna play with Orcs. That was my favorite mission in the entire campaign, though, so you'll be missing out on it for now.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.pcgamer.com/spellforce-3-review/

SPELLFORCE 3 REVIEW

SpellForce 3 presents a mishmash of small-party roleplaying games in the vein of Baldur's Gate and real-time strategy games in the style of Age of Empires, which initially made me wonder: If I can have an army at my back at any time, why wouldn't I use it? There's a band of trolls? By all means, send in the infantry. The fate of the world depends on defeating an evil wizard? Screw the personal heroics, send in the reserves.

Happily, the concept usually works because the well-written story gives believable reasons for it to play a bit like Pillars of Eternity sometimes but an RTS other times. It's a tale of a constant and drastically changing fortunes, casting you as a reluctant outsider who can't escape the sins of his or her father or the prejudices of a world that treats magic with the same contempt we find in Dragon Age or Skyrim. It's a bit like Russell Crowe's Gladiator: sometimes you've got the world's best legions at your back, while at other times those legions are at your back because you're running from them, disgraced and falsely accused, in this case through a smelly sewer with a single other companion.

It's a good story, too, if derivative to the point that finding Dragon Age and Witcher parallels starts feeling like finding Easter eggs. Its companion characters are merely likeable rather than memorable. The familiarity blunts some of tale's emotional impact, but SpellForce 3 usually manages to make up for that with its richly detailed settings, some of which were made solely for brief sidequests.

These metronomic shifts between the big picture of a wider war and small moments within it are rare in RPGs, no doubt in large part because of the problems they present for intuitive play. Most skirt the issue by barely involving the protagonists in the larger conflict at all, letting the battles unfold in flashy cutscenes or even in text descriptions in loading screens.

SpellForce, though, has been doing this kind of thing since 2003, and never before has the mix worked so well. Simplicity is the key, as seen in the way it bundles all abilities for your four-person party into a simple action wheel that pops up when you hold Alt over an enemy. The RTS sequences require base building and gathering resources, but they're spread fairly far apart and the laborers and caravans usually do their work without outside management. By keeping the RPG and RTS systems uncomplicated, SpellForce 3 ensures that they can both live on the battlefield at once without ever becoming too much to handle. Played in co-op mode with up to three players, SpellForce 3 can even feel a bit like a traditional RPG, although unfortunately, only the host gets a persistent save.

Inevitably, some strategic depth gets lost in this simplification. SpellForce 3's adventures involve humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves, but you'll find no specialized racial buildings and each army plays largely like the other aside from minor differences, such as how the elves have a predictable fondness for bows.

For the most part, attempting to position my four heroes properly in the absence of a real-time-with-pause system proved the greater challenge; I could generally win the RTS portions by tossing the blob of paper-weak soldiers I'd recruited at the enemy blob, triggering key spells from my heroes as needed. In the hybrid context of SpellForce 3, it's not really a bad design as it keeps the RTS portions brisk, as does the need to run out and capture new outposts in order to build the army's population and amass enough resources to keep the war engine going.

These strategy sequences make for fun diversions, in other words, but they're wisely never the stars of the show. A decent (if laggy) multiplayer skirmish mode exists for anyone who wants more of it, but it mainly shows how weak the RTS elements are when stripped of their RPG backdrop.

For all its idiosyncrasies, SpellForce 3 is an RPG above all else. It's a smart move, as the RTS portions grant a sense of the stakes involved, while the RPG section keeps the story personal and full of emotional impact. The RPG part, in fact, contains SpellForce's more rewarding (if predictable) systems, whether it's the multiple talent trees that help you steer your companions into the roles you want them to play or the loot system that drops gear that's more interesting than what you'd expect from a hybrid RTS. Early on, when I found a helmet that spawns a goblin to fight for me, I was reluctant to give it up for objectively better digs.

All this makes SpellForce 3 is one of the finest hybrids of RPGs and real-time strategy games out there, but it achieves that distinction mainly by being one of the few. Neither of its two halves hold up particularly well compared to purer iosmetric RPGs or RTS games, but together they deliver a enjoyable experience that manages to feel unique even with its constant callbacks.

THE VERDICT
74

SPELLFORCE 3
SpellForce 3 competently blends RPG and RTS games into a generally enjoyable package, but there’s not enough creative force to create a lasting spell.
 

Jimmious

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 18, 2015
Messages
5,132
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I love it when I see scores like "74".
The precision of the 4 indicates that they have some intricate scoring algorithm which they run for each game, am I right?
:nocountryforshitposters:
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
I.e. It needs a more daring expansion or two to really go somewhere and come into its own. Which I'm not against, I will be against the inevitable DLC avalanche, though. We'll see, I hope I'm wrong and they only release meaty expansions. Do we have sales numbers?
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
Yeah, the price is a bit high and I think many people are waiting for a discount, including me, but 60k only on Steam isn't bad.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
Seems like this game is pretty cool, if anybody wants to review it for the Codex we're up for it.
Speaking of which, would this review be going on the RPG Codex site or the Tacticular Cancer site? For some reason Tacticular Cancer has not been updated in over a year. I remember sending a news submission there for Spire of Sorcery iirc, but that didn't get put up there either.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,420
Game needs a lot more polishing. Got hero with assasin tree her assasin skill damage doesnt do as listed maybe only works with dex weapons?
 

Cyberarmy

Love fool
Patron
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Messages
8,452
Location
Smyrna - Scalanouva
Divinity: Original Sin 2
I'm liking the game a lot. It's a better RPG than most other "RPG"s nowadays. Characters, stories, side missions all feel much better. I smiled first time I got "Fuck you/ sod off" as an answer when asking a random NPC for loredump. Such a refreshment from considering NPC nowadays tell everything to you as soon as you meet them.
Exploring is nice, good amount of "hidden" quests here and there with good rewards.
Campaign RTS can use a bit polish.
 
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Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Reviews: http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/120143-spellforce-iii-reviews.html

PC Gamer 74/100:

For all its idiosyncrasies, SpellForce 3 is an RPG above all else. It's a smart move, as the RTS portions grant a sense of the stakes involved, while the RPG section keeps the story personal and full of emotional impact. The RPG part, in fact, contains SpellForce's more rewarding (if predictable) systems, whether it's the multiple talent trees that help you steer your companions into the roles you want them to play or the loot system that drops gear that's more interesting than what you'd expect from a hybrid RTS. Early on, when I found a helmet that spawns a goblin to fight for me, I was reluctant to give it up for objectively better digs.

All this makes SpellForce 3 is one of the finest hybrids of RPGs and real-time strategy games out there, but it achieves that distinction mainly by being one of the few. Neither of its two halves hold up particularly well compared to purer iosmetric RPGs or RTS games, but together they deliver a enjoyable experience that manages to feel unique even with its constant callbacks.

WCCFTech 6.5/10:

SpellForce 3 isn't a bad game, it can even be pretty good at parts. A vast world is left for you to explore with far reaching problems to solve. The game merges RPG and RTS in a great way, never leaving one side the worse for it. However, it can often fall foul of leaving you with little to do outside of RTS, with areas impressive to look at, but boring to walk through. There certainly is something interesting to find out with the story as well, but the delivery leaves a lot to want with too much exposition and terrible voice acting. You can certainly have fun with SpellForce, particularly the fast paced strategy side of things, but it can feel like a slog at times.

Impluse Gamer 4/5:

I’m a pretty big fan of RTS and certainly a big fan of RPG’s, I love being able to dig into a character and forge them the way I would like. Spellforce 3 does a good job of mashing those two genres together and the result is a pretty decent campaign that should have you entertained for quite some time. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, in just the right doses and you get a great game that stands above the sum of it’s parts.

SelectButton 8/10:

SpellForce 3 is a pretty fantastic game, but it's also pretty large and potentially overwhelming. That's not to say it doesn't create an excellent challenge, but there is quite a bit to pick up and run with for people new to the RTS genre. I feel that given some time, most can become quite adept and will thoroughly enjoy the game. And at the least, the game has some beautiful graphics to admire while you're slaughtering some crazy beast or an enemy army.

KeenGamer 8/10:

I liked my time with Spellforce 3, it's a beautiful game and definitely a unique combination of genres that's unlike anything else out there. Where other RPG's talk about your involvement in a war or large-scale skirmishes, Spellforce actually lets you not only take part in but also control such battles with the addition of the RTS element. I would definitely recommend it if you are a fan of either genre but perhaps you'll want to wait some time for the bugs to be cleared out with additional patches. But even now, it's a fun throwback to a bit older RPGs in a modern coat of paint. Might not be as deep, layered or polished as Original Sin 2, but it has enough going for it that makes the 30-hour long campaign well worth it.

GamingBolt 7/10:

It’s a trope of wrap everything up as Spellforce 3 “is greater than the sum of its parts” but then again, Spellforce 3 itself is at its weakest when it leans on the tropes of the western fantasy setting and some mainstays of the genres it’s mashing up. But the game is also at its best when it is seamlessly moving between the best of both genres and giving the player the agency to tackle its quests in some unique ways and on some grand maps. Get over the small learning curve and Spellforce 3 has many interesting ideas to show.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
IF the game was polished the reviews would have been great. Also Christmas season was a bad release date for the game,they would have made more sales if it was released during the dry season or the beginning of the new year.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
Yeah, I have a feeling they rushed it to make it for Christmas. Surprisingly not a good idea a lot of the time.
 

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