Iβm thrilled to say after finishing the main campaign of Spellforce 3 this is the most similar to Warcraft 3 for the RPG side. Multiple unique heroes, diverse skill trees(one even has necromancy and demonology!), can equip varied amount of gear, and unleash devastating aoe spells. Complete with passives, active auraβs and summons! On the RTS side, you can build a base, make your soldiers, upgrade your units buildings, collect specific resources structures, and increasing the population cap. And the setting is basically medieval fantasy. Complete with races such as humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, dark elves, trolls, etc. Though with a different premise. You play as the child of an infamous rebel mage leader. Who has been granted amnesty by the queen of the human faction and allowed to train in order to become a Wolf Guard, think of them as a special force in the army. Though, youβre not special at all considering its been years after your fatherβs failed mage rebellion and having to endure scornful comments about your past doesnβt help through the years, but hey you made it! Now we're off on a mission to stop a magical plague called the Bloodburn affecting the lands of Eo(the continent). No idea how it works, who it targets, or what are the conditions to activate, but its important enough to find a solution quickly before all human territories perish. Oh before I forget, your superior? Geralt of Rivia. Yeah you heard that right. Doug Cockleβs voice graces our [url=https://youtu.be/dWtq5FrXDYg?t=25]ears once again. Good oβl RPG + RTS Great sense of gradual progression for newbies in the genres. Starting out, youβll learn the basics of both building an army, setting up a base, how to manage your units to attack, how to bind units/structures onto a keybind for easier access along with a spellbar for easy use during engagements. For those unaware or find it daunting to juggle building a base and managing armies on the go. Have no fear, thereβs multiple settings in the game and I played on normal, finding it a good middle ground for RTS veterans. If youβre having trouble remember you can pause and take a breather or set the difficulty lower. No shame in doing either actions considering I always switch to a lower tier myself when things get too hectic for me. One of the most gratifying qualities SP3 nails is the RPG element in hero management and customization of your heroes. To an extent, I wish more RTS games followed through from WC3βs example and implemented them further. Dawn of War Iβm glad has their own version which is equally great and stands on its own too. Here I felt a greater sense of WC3 nostalgia when launching my devastating aoe spells, buffing my allies with defense, empowering them with unique items from common to legendary with oh my lord NOT-Borderlands-style of a gajillion gear to pursue and mix-match to make my min-maxing lifestyle succumb to retirement. Concerning the RTS component. I found the experience decent, with some minor issues iβll detail later on. First off, on positives. Build order is pretty easy to remember, you basically always start off with your main base, having to construct resource gathering houses to accrue more wood, stone, food, iron and a water essence. You can easily see which resource nodes are nearby to erect quickly. Satisfying Strategy Synergy. A guilty pleasure of mine in strategy games is using the least amount of units possible to wipe out a large force. In Total War(a mix of turn based strategy and real time combat) games I've done skirmishes against a force with similar 1 to 3 odds or larger, not give or take 300 Greeks against the gazillion Persians. Using clever unit compositions similar to rock-papers-scissors maneuvers that would make Shouzou Kaga(Fire Emblem creator) proud. Shoutout to Total War: Warhammer for using heroes right in the series! I found the storytelling to be strangely compelling in ways that surprised me considering I doubted the grounded fantasy would work in ways that would keep me interested. I admit to having major doubts after the early game concluded and I felt the weakest part was the middle-half of the narrative to keep me interested. Yet the endgame, reeled me back in like fish on a hook. Without going into spoilers the whole world of Eo at the time is a mature setting delving into topics of class hierarchy, corruption, innocents suffering, duty and orders, slavery, genocides, is merely a small drop of what else the title offers. Casting a Mixed Feelings Spell! Sadly I must admit to some mixed feelings in varying degrees from minor to major that I feel should be noted. Lots of yapping, the biggest weakness is loads of npcβs, questgivers, companions and generally antagonists will yap your ear off until you get sick of it. The amount of expository lore, backstory, and in general needless information youβll succumb to is something I felt was overdone and shouldβve done more on showing us than telling us. Dialogue history box to see past conversations, why this wasnβt implemented with loads of discussions I have no idea. With the loads of text youβll read and listen through and to voice actors credit, a large chunk is voice acted. Sucks to accidentally move forward and try to recover from your mistake only to see you canβt re-listen to what your companions/npcβs said. Feels like a missed opportunity to include. Iβm not sure if itβs just me but I had to rebind controls to proper RTS protocols. Using a mouse to move the screen isnβt optimal in my opinion. Personally I prefer using the w,a,s,d, format to optimally adjust the screen in the up, down, left, right direction which is faster than using a mouse to drag to the corner/edges of the screen. Not a fan of breaking apart upgrades(blueprints) for each of your factions by endgame via finding them around maps, by endgame if you are missing upgrades and units you likely didn't grab the blueprints tucked away in some previous maps/sidequest maps. So by the time you reach maps before the end credits roll you may not have everything to upgrade your units/buildings. So enjoy playing against the toughest enemies with a handicapped build order because you didnβt exert enough effort to explore every map. One and done strategy I don't think works for a RTS/RPG combo. Primarily in regards to sector grabbing for resources. For those unaware i think rapidly expanding to gain resources feels too limiting in spellforce 3. Wish there were more varied objectives beyond the standard go to point a to point b quests. Accept quest, go to area with npc/item, return to quest giver complete. Combine this with the occasional kill and im straight into yawning city. Sure thereβs some outside the norm to finish puzzles, play detective, investigate, but these seem too little compared to the majority in the former. I wish the developers decided to go bolder with their design. Despite my mixed feelings affecting my overall experience in major & minor ways, I don't think it takes away from the positives much. Thereβs still a decent to great RTS game here coupled with the slice of RPG pie I havenβt felt since my Warcraft days. Evoking similar feelings of nostalgia with enough content to stand on its own two feet, hopefully when I feel I'm ready I'll tackle the expansions to see if the story is better and see if they fix any of my criticisms from the main game. Honestly we donβt often see these types of games that evoke the old Blizzard magic, there are some I've been keeping an eye on in the indie scene like Age of Darkness: Final Stand, Darfall, Godsworn, The Scouring, Liquidation and perhaps Lessaria: Fantasy Kingdom Sim. But the rest in the sea of indie RTS donβt go forth to take direct inspiration. I sincerely wish one day another developer studio will lead the charge for another in a heroesque RTS mindset, for the potential is there shining brightly. 7.5/10
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