SpellForce 3
X
Forgot password? Recovery Link
New to site? Create an Account
Already have an account? Login
Back to Login
0
5.00
Edit
It is the year 518. The rebellion of the renegade mages, known as the Mage Wars, has been quashed by the Crown. However, it was a pyrrhic victory: whole regions have fallen into anarchy, refugees roam the lands in search of shelter, and a mysterious, deadly plague called the “Bloodburn” has arisen and is spreading rapidly.
Steam User 79
Great game. Would really love a 4th installment. Playing this game helped me deal with a really dark time in my life. Such a good blend of RTS and RPG. Well done.
Steam User 34
The most beautifully designed RTS game I’ve ever played. Even today, in 2023, it continues to surpass the graphics of blockbuster titles published less than a year ago. And it’s not just the graphics: the gameplay is amazing and the story telling is superb. I really recommend this game.
Steam User 23
I really am so glad to see the reviews for SF3 turning around. Spellforce was one of my favorite series back in the 00s, so it broke my heart when SF3 was released and it was trash.
If you're new to the scene, this was a "mostly negative" game for quite some time. Then they released the expansion Soul Harvest which reworked the mechanics, and they were so good, Grimoire went back and RE-RELEASED the original game with the new mechanics to make it not suck, as well as another expansion.
This is a pretty amazing thing, and more gamers and game companies should take notice. No Man's Sky did something similar. They recognized they f'ed up, and put in a ton of time and hard work to fix their mistakes, free of cost. This game deserves a positive rating for that alone.
Having said that, I don't think the game will be for everyone, though it is a fantastic game for those who it will be for.
I'm not much of an RTS player, but I love a good top-down RPG with an engaging story, characters with personality, beautiful maps, and unique mechanics. SF3 has these.
The story isn't SUPER unique, though it's also not too terribly cliche, and there are some quality of life tweaks I"d still like to see in the mechanics (like a spell queue), but overall this game really is quite fun.
I like how most of the characters are traditional but not TOO traditional. For instance you get an elf companion early on, and they can be either a healer or a ranger, or both; you're not just limited to another Legolas. A dwarven archaeologist? Come on, how perfect is that? Sure he wears heavy armor, but I feel like archaeologist should also be a dwarven stereotype, but it's not...at all.
And just look at the map detail in those screen shots. For all its flaws, don't even try to tell me this isn't an absolutely gorgeous game.
I will say, the difficulty shift between the RPG and RTS areas seems incredibly unbalanced. While you may feel on-level or even over-leveled in the RPG segments, unless you're a traditional RTS vet, you will get destroyed in the RTS segments. While Total War: Warhammer is my most played series on Steam, I have almost no experience with traditional RTS games like Starcraft, Warcraft, Dawn of War, C&C etc. So I really struggle with the RTS sections. Thankfully you can change the difficulty mid game, so I pretty much always have to put it on easy, and it makes them doable.
There's no way that's just me though. I will build everything at a reasonable rate that the game allows, and by the time I start pumping out just a few troops at my barracks...I'm completely overrun by the enemy. How?
Maybe if you're a hardcore RTS fan you'll get whatever it is I'm missing, but if you're just a filthy casual like me, prepare to either lower the difficulty or be confused and frustrated.
However the RTS is still pretty fun on easy, and I'll put it back on hard for the RPG segments, and I REALLY do enjoy those.
So, yeah, if you're good at RTS games, you'll love SF3. It's basically Warcraft 3 but half the game is Hero specific segments. If you're not good at RTS games...you'll probably still enjoy it, but, you've been warned.
Side note, GG did an AMAZING job giving this game controller mechanics. They work perfectly for the RPG segments. A controller will never be as good as M&K for RTS games, but it's still actually pretty damn good for those. It is truly impressive.
Steam User 18
Absolutely nastee RPG/RTS hybrid that doesn't slouch on the RPG elements. That's what I love about this game and potentially this series, is that, at least in Spellforce 3, the game heavily leans into the RPG side of things for an ultimately very immersive and interesting experience.
The RTS battles are cool, they can be tough at first but once you get a grip on them not only do they become easier, they become downright enjoyable. These sections are interesting also because you can still use the RPG side of things *with* the RTS side. So for example, you can use certain Spells or Abilities that influence the RTS mechanics, and suddenly the real-time combat with a 'party' gets huge because your party has become a ton of RTS units plus your RPG dudes. Very cool imo.
Tons of quality content, great voice acting, beautiful graphics and just a very immersive and lore-heavy experience, I really dig this one. I wish there were more RPGs that tried combining different elements like these to make something unique. I can't really think of many other games that combine the RPG and RTS stuff flawlessly, but it's very fun here and worthy of exploring.
P.S. Wish there was a Pause button though. The combat could be called Real-time With Slowdown, not pause. Slowdown is cool to make combat more thrilling and it *does* work okay here, but a Pause button imo would just be a bit better for those who don't want the franticness associated with not only RTS sections but also realtime RPG combat. RTWP combat is cool, we need more of it! Maybe with an option to do RTWSlowdown. :)
Thanks devs for the awesome game! <3
Steam User 14
(+) top-notch writing (on point dialogues)
(+) superb voice acting
(+) statisfying power curve
(+) well delivered story (being "the good guy" rarely was more fun)
(-) the RTS part still can be a hustle as long as you don't know what you're doing ;p
Steam User 13
One of the best games I've played in a long time. I don't think I've had this much intrigue and love for a story since Divinity: Original Sin 2. The storytelling is absolutely stellar, the voice acting is beyond top-notch, the graphics are great, the music is grand, map design is great, exploring the map is always fun, the icon art is really well-detailed, the companions you can get and most other characters feel alive, responsive, all have their interesting stories, and there's so many little touches that really add up making the experience truly something to remember. I really honestly can't emphasize how good the storytelling aspect of this game is.
The RTS aspect of the game is blended surprisingly well into RPG gameplay. As an avid base-building RTS player myself, I'd say it's a bit basic, but not the bad kind of basic, which is all it really needs considering story is what it focuses on. This side of the game can probably be difficult to those who have little-to-no experience with the RTS genre so keep that in mind because it can get difficult later on in the campaign.
Like all games, there are downsides however, thankfully only small ones in this case. From the RPG aspect, sometimes the voice-acting didn't match the text, and there's some odd punctuation choices every now and again. From the RTS side, most of the common problems people tend to have are typically skill issues, which is fine, but that's not a problem with the game especially when there are difficulty options. Another common complaint was that buildings repair too fast, and while I can agree that this is a potential issue early on in the campaign, when you get siege units, it's really not a big deal at all. Performance-wise, the only issue I had was that Windowed Borderless causes some giant performance drops for me (despite having a beast of a computer) which was fixed by going to Fullscreen.
All-in-all, I couldn't recommend this game more if you love a great story with non-turn based Baldur's Gate-like style combat and/or a base-building RTS. I hear that the past Spellforce games may have been better, but I've never played them and I think it's unfairly biased to simply call this a bad game because of how good a past iteration was. Better or not, the foundation of a great game is here and its storytelling is spectacular. Any game deserves merits on what it did right.
Steam User 13
7.9/10
I originally bought this when it came out and I refunded within a couple of hours. Fast forward a couple of years and the devs have reworked this and released as the "Reforced" version.
I wanted to give it another try as I used to like the Spellforce series many years ago. Now I honestly can't tell you what differences are implemented from when I first tried the game to this point, but something is working as I am really enjoying this game so far.
It really does remind me of the old warcraft games (especially III). All of the text has been completed with dialogues from real actors (so far into it at 6 + hours, and I assume the whole game is complete). The story seems pretty good and I like the implementation of the 2 styles of game play where you are controlling your heroes who have rpg stats and go off and do dungeons by themselves occasionally and follow a story line, and then you flip over and do a map where you are commanding your forces and building bases and fighting other factions (ALA Warcraft)..
Quite fun so far and ALSO -apparently you can have a friend help you out coop for the whole campaign (I haven't tried it coop) but that's a big plus for a lot of gamers. I also bought this game with all of the DLC for $15 (CDN) and for that price it's a steal!