SpellForce 3

This game is as close to a lotr/warcraft crossover rts/rpg thing what ever you wanna call it.
Fundamentally it is a good game. It could be an absolute amazing game that rivals AOE and star craft in the RTS world and conceptually be a more gritty diablo-esq version of Warcraft and it starts that way, but doesn't finish that way. Just needs more cooking and polish.
RTS elements 5/6 out of 10, the resource system is very good, i feel this game with its outpost system should work more akin to battle for middle earth 2, but it is good.
RPG/charecter elements 5/6 out of 10 - need more charecter custom options. The only one that is filled out is human. If the depth of human opitons were avaiable for all races be much better. Character customisation isn't huge, nor should it be it shouldn't be the focus, but it does need to be better. skill trees are a very good start and if this was an entry title, pretty launch pad for improvement.
Story 5ish out of 10 - has alot of potential to be good needs to be flushed out, bit disjointed, very rushed through, ending is very abrupt.
Voice acting 10 out of 10 everything is really well voiced, its very hard to fault. More so the writing rather than the reading is where youll find issue - but there is alot of dialogue and exposition. Not bad, not great needs to be reduced and tightened up. the voice actor for geralt is in game nuff siad.
Quests 5 out of 10... everything other than main story is meh and inconsequential
Gear 4/5-10 - cosmetically looks great, more variety is always welcome, but gear is very inconsequential when you look at stat distribution atk damage and armour overpower everything so there's no point in anything other than 2 hand, and heavy armor. your entry level two hander will do 200-300 damge... one hand 100... you can buff resistance with skills so shields, pointless, any other weapon pointless, ranged too slow, pointless. two arm, plate armour done.
Characters 4 out of 10. Game characters are fine, none are memorable other than geralts voiced character "noria" hes the only one that seems to have some stakes in the whole thing with some semblance of a character ark and being important in the world building, but that's about it. Everyone else is pretty interchangeable, non consequential.
Expansions 3 out of 10. Story elements are fine. But first expansion, off screen kills main character of original game. makes absolutely no sense, literally not mentioned after a couple of dialogue pieces. No idea why the thought this was good idea. troll campaing... eh couldnt get into it. probably ok.
Overall you should play this game. Conceptually its very good, executed okish, not buggy. Its not a bad game by any means, but its also not the great game it could have. This had potential to rival, Warcraft etc, but its just lacking probably 12 months of testing and development.
You will need some semblance of micro skills to play otherwise AI will cheese you.
This is a good game. But that's it, just a good game.

The first couple of hours, I was looking for reasons to label this game "Not a Spellforce", and I failed to find any. It is a true Spellforce game, from its mix of RPG/RTS elements, to some common plot and gameplay elements, to some obligatory baffling design decisions. All things considered (and by year 2023), it is the most well-built game in the franchise, and the easiest recommend, though not to say my favorite one.
Graphically, SF1 and SF2 were gorgeous for their time, if a bit dated technically. SF3 are top-notch in technical aspects, and not too demanding - my underpowered laptop was able to run the game without too many concessions. I don't quite vibe with the atmosphere however, it goes for a dark and grimy mood, borderline dark fantasy even, like it's a contemporary fantasy TV series like GoT, though there's only a handful of muddy brown maps, most maps are colorful, and there's plenty variety in landscapes. Occasionally, maps have too much extra detail, making them harder to navigate. Also you cannot switch to 3rd person view anymore to have that little bit of immersion
Soundtrack is good, I can't recall a single melody, but I remember liking it while I was playing the game. Voice acting is finally consistently good, everyone is voiced professionally, though voice recording is at times patchy and not mastered well.
The plot is finally 100% coherent (though I'd argue it was also coherent in SF1:TBoW), with understandable premise, motivations, and a few decently surprising plot twists, I quite like it. You get to meet most of the Circle mages, which is a fun bit of continuity, though those few we did get to interact with in previous games don't feel like anything they've been portrayed in this game, besides their "specialities". I can handwave those inconsistencies as 500 years of war and archfire corruption changing their personalities, still there are a couple more differences and retcons compared to older games, not that continuity is all that important in this franchise. The plot is quite dark compared to the rest of the franchise, and there's nothing new about the main antagonist being a faction of anti-magic luddites, nevertheless, I think it sets the right stakes and conflict for you to want to see the game to its conclusion. It took me around 50 hours to complete, which is on par with SF2, though maybe SF3 has a weeny bit less content, in particular, it reuses maps too often, up to three times in some cases
Your companions have their personalities, skills, backstories, occasionally they can banter with each other, give their input on the sitiation, and in a few rare cases, alter quest conditions. In a bit of downgrade compared to SF2:DS, they don't have their own sidequests, instead you can unlock their advanced skill by diligently talking to them in-between missions in the hub area. And, uh, they are kinda too prone to confiding in me about their sex life, or bringing up themes of sexual assault and other dark topics, and there's no magic in that, you know? I think SpellForce - a franchise about goofy magic - should not go there. They wanted to portray the cast as dysfunctional and broken misfits by bringing up these serious topics, but SF2:DS achieved the same by utilizing cool fantasy concepts as opposed to morning newspaper headlines.
There are less explicit sidequests, but the game more than makes up for it by having optional sub-campaigns where you can unlock or upgrade armies and recruit new companions. There are also unmarked sidequests about finding artifacts, which you can stumble upon by inspecting points of interests and reading in-game books. And I am two minds about it - it is an interesting idea to make the player think beyond quest markers, but the game is too self-confident about its writing being so compelling as to make me read it, care about it and remember it (it was not for me), there's too much filler literature, and there are too many artifacts to keep track of them all - so look up an artifacts guide, be sure to find one for Reforced specifically.
RTS part was the most flawed aspect of the game for me. The first two proper RTS scenarios introduce you to the following "fun" bits of design: enemy units are just "spawned" at their bases like in SF1 without having to be properly built, they do not use resources so there is no point in disrupting their economy; one builder outrepairs damage dealt to buildings by 20-head army, and builders are respawned immediately after being killed so you need very strong armies to take down even the simpliest outpost, and outposts are equipped with passive defenses and shoot back, so you need crazy micro to not lose units during base assaults; pathfinding is patchy, and your units are all too happy to pursue retreating enemies to their base and get killed. The second battle in particular, the one where you fight against waves of 20+ goblins and orcs while having limited foothold had shown me that turtling is the best strategy and made me averse to engaging wiht the campaign in RTS way, so once I got my hero party to being strong enough to withstand what enemy armies could throw at me, I would just rush to the enemy capital with my heroes and end the battle there and then. The outpost system is a neat idea, and spares you a lot of micro, if only the numerous enemy outposts weren't so turtly to take down for aforementioned reasons. I quite like the economies, there are slight but not insignificant differences in how each race builds up and gathers resources, and mimicks how they were in SF1 while not being so unbalanced (or so I assume, didn't touch the Multiplayer, and unlikely to ever do). The units and racial units rosters are also decently varied, though I find units in SF2 more interesting and varied; overall, in my limited attempts to engage with RTS bits properly, a deathball of a few different kinds of units - while keeping your fragile siege units separate - worked for me quite well if I was content with a few losses. Also micro is made really hard by making unit select hitboxes really precise and difficult to click on, or sometimes them being impossible to select because they are hidden from camera behind buildings - especially enemy workers.
RPG elements are almost perfect, and some parts like stats systems - I'd say one of the best in the whole RPG genre. Yeah, stats system - the game is balanced in a flat way, so a wolf encountered in the last area is as dangerous as the one in the first area, you do encounter stronger enemy types and more dangerous enemy groups later in the game, but there's no linear or exponential level scaling, numbers generally stay within the same ballpark. Same as your heroes - if you so desire, you can max out a stat from the very beginning (at the expense of all other stats), and have a full potential for that stat for the rest of the game, like having max health with top endurance, or dealing max ranged damage with top dexterity; leveling up then allows you to cover your weaker spots and become more versatile, which goes ways into making you more prepared for late-game encounters. Your abilities - spells or otherwise - are more useful and interesting than in SF2, though active abilities are hard to micro mostly due to hitbox issues, and even with only 4 heroes the ability bar gets too overwhelming, even with the patented Seed&Feed system, which is now hidden behind Alt key. Your heroes cannot learn everything anymore - only their chosen skill trees, which gives them a bit more personality and specialization; there's too little synergy opportunities between different skill trees sadly, so even with 3 or 4 trees, you should only invest into 2 at most.
Equipment with randomized stats was a letdown in SF2; here, the items have static stats, and were deliberately crafted; artifacts usually have cool effects, but even non-artifact gear can have useful stats; they all have stats requirement, looping back and enhancing the stats system

Very good mix of RTS and team RPG game. In comparison to SpellForce 2 the RTS part is much better. RPG part is very good. Skill trees and character development is not very complex, but still lets you play a bit with a build that fits you. I feel that developers reached a very good balance between RPG and RTS that allows to fully enjoy both parts.

I like the game play but I absolutely love sound and graphics design of this game. Music is soft and melancholic. World is beautifully drawn. It takes some time to explore new location because I have admire the views all the time.

Absolute banger.

This game is seriously the biggest hidden gem for RPG & RTS lovers combined!!! Its got a story that surprises and keeps you interested so so well written. The game is just beautiful its crazy. Its a a must play for fantasy lovers!! 10/10

At first, I believed I have discovered hidden gem of perfection, but after having finished everything, I would say the game recieves about the accurate amount of criticism.
So what is this game anyway?
Well, I would say CRPG lite combined with RTS segments. Now truth is, this is apparently what the older games are about, but I simply can not get behind the RTS segments. They are just way too drawn out and basically play out same no matter the map or scenario. You defend the node against endlessly spawning enemies, you make big enough army, you push a node of the oponent, which takes forever because of insane repair speed and infinitely spawning workers that repair, you fortify it, defend it a little, sometimes longer, because AI decides to rusk A instead of B, so you ought to shift your army elsewhere, and this basically repeats for an hour or so. Multiply it 10 to 20 times (I lost track) and you have overglorified shitfest that are the RTS sections. That comes from long term RTS vet.
One saving grace could be MP, here I could see the RTS mode working pretty well, but for the campaign, it is attrocious.
The party based segments are however pretty great overall. You get to discover beatiful environments with plenty quests and cool interactions, secrets, meaningful loot, interesting build choices for your party members and the game even has a central hub area which you expand over the course of the game.
The story is also solid, though it went from interesting to basically generic fantasy nonsense in the second half with expectable twists and revelations. Final bossfight and even final level is the exception to this rule, and reason why I would recommend finnishing the game, because the endgame mostly contains just the obtuse RTS sections and the story drags a lot-the game even has balls to basically reuse every single location once without introducing barelly any new ones.
Would I recommend it, yeah, but make sure you use the ability to change difficulty to easy any time RTS segment pops up, it will save you a lot of lifetime. Or not, but you have been warned! Cool game.

I am flabbergasted by how good this game is.
The story, writing, voice acting are very high quality, but most importantly the gameplay is supper fun and well designed.
I can't believe this game is not more popular and I think many any future RTS games should take inspiration this title.
The campaign is amazing. It can be played in coop. There are other small gamemodes which are also very fun and can be played in coop.
The PVP gamemode looks also very interesting. I haven't played any of it by the of writing this review, but I have been watching some matches on youtube and it looked very interesting.
I highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a new and innovative spin on the RTS genre. I also recommend it to anyone who enjoys CRPGs to give it a chance as a potential entry to RTS.

Amazing game and the voice acting is so good it makes it easy to get involved in what's happening.
- Story 10/10 (So good, fuck the Purity and bitch ass Lacaine)
- Game mechanics 8/10 (missile units can block thin spaces not letting other units pass and you can't make custom formations, eg. put melee up front and missiles at the back)
- Visuals 9/10 (although old, it stands up to current games and water or jungle are amazing visually. Also, enemies are very varied)
- Factions 8/10 (Very different to each other, all with different focuses, find your favorite and upgrade them to the max.)
Summary 8.75/10