great game
When the game was released in 2004 publisher Jowood didn't do a whole lot of US promotion (this may have been due to their ongoing financial troubles). Failure to buy ad space in the pages of PC Gamer magazine, or at the Gamespot and Gamespy web pages is, of course, almost always the kiss of death for a PC game in terms of hype and coverage. So this title was undeservedly passed by in a lot of "Best of 2004" lists, for example garnering a 73% score from PC Gamer (mainly because of bugs related to ATI cards, according to the reviewer). But the game got a good reception in Europe and the dev studio, German outfit Phenomic, put together two expansion packs and SpellForce 2 is in the works for a late-2005 release.
The Gold edition I bought comes with the Breath of Winter expansion, and is corrected to address many of the bugs that compromised the initial release. I liked the game so much that I also wound up purchasing the second expansion pack, SpellForce: Shadow of the Phoenix, from GoGamer.com (it wasn't released here in the US). On October 11 2005, there came word (at Console Gold) that JoWood / Aspyr Media is releasing "SpellForce:Platinum" in the US in November '05, containing all three titles in the series for just $20...a great deal.
The other reviewers go over the particulars of the gameplay in some detail, so I won't go over the same ground in my review. I'll just say that the mingling of the RPG and RTS genres is, overall, very well done. Think of (inevitably) Warcraft 3, HOMM IV, Age of Wonders II, Disciples II, mated to Dungeon Siege, Divine Divinity, or even Neverwinter Nights. While SpellForce is in many ways a complex game that you'll need to spend time with before fully appreciating just how deep it is, the tutorial is helpful in giving the player a good sense of how the game functions. The initial missions, which are limited in scope and designed to give the player familiarity with handling the controls, ease you into learning the nuances of the Hero summoning, as well as base-building management. As you progress further into the storyline the maps get larger, the enemies more numerous, and the ability to exploit your resources and carry out a sound tactical battle-plan assumes greater importance. For those times when the game got frustrating in terms of difficulty, the walkthru by gaoneng at: http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/SpellForce_a.txt was quite useful, and there are also walkthrus / maps at: www.planetSpellForce.com/sp/walkthrough.php.
I bought the Prima guide, but found it to be rather mediocre (for example, many of the unit names have not been translated from the original German text), so relying on the on-line walkthroughs is recommended. Both main and side-quests are plentiful in SpellForce, but on the whole they're straightforward, and the game provides an informative quest log that means you'll rarely find yourself trying to figure out what you have to do next.
When an RTS starts to have tens of units simultaneously in action in a given map, responsive controls and camera are mandatory to keeping the gameplay from degenerating into keypunching frenzy, and SpellForce does an admirable job here....better, in fact, than very recent RTS titles like the Warhammer 40,000 "Dawn of War" series. Camera angles and control are easy to master, as are selecting and moving units, and engaging in combat. Base building and resource management are a bit deeper, and I was still learning some nuances half-way into the game. But Phenomic provides a long, leisure learning curve to make up for the complexities of unit handling (and the fact that the manual is a bit vague on some aspects of gameplay).
SpellForce isn't perfect. There are some minor flaws that crop up now and then. The biggest gripe I had was the way the developers dictate Ability and Skill point allocations. You're pretty much forced into being either a hard-core fighter or a hard-core mage, since access to higher-level weapons and armor, and spells, requires dedicated point input from pretty much the very start of the game. If, like me, you're more interested in playing as an Old School paladin-type character, with limited but decent abilities in both spellcasting and melee combat, placement of ability and skill points becomes quite tricky and you will inevitably wind up with precious points irretrievably spent on magic schools or combat capabilities, that don't provide all that much of an edge on many maps.
Another problem is that, short of consulting the walkthru ahead of time, there's no way to determine if a given map can be tackled with a predominantly RPG approach, i.e., solely by your avatar and heroes; or via an obligatory RTS approach, involving extensive base-building, creation of a sizeable army, and control-intensive onslaughts. Going with the second approach can, on some maps, be quite difficult, and success often depends on grinding out enormous numbers of defensive structures and using these to advance upon enemy spawn points in a tiring series of incremental battles. I suspect that even the most hard-core of RTS gamers will experience frustration and restarts if, from the very start of the mission, they try to go the base-building route on, for example, the Stoneblade, Rift, or Nightwhisper maps. If hardcore base-building and RTS functions are not your style, it's better to try an RPG approach to the maps whenever possible.
Finally, the game's ending can leave the player feeling a bit underwhelmed. Having the expansion packs close at hand made it more tolerable, but still, you're not going to get quite the feel-good atmosphere that's the norm for fantasy themed RPG titles.
Graphics are, IMHO, better than the NeverWinter Nights and Dungeon Siege series' offerings. They have a crisp brightness that is pleasing to the eye and the depiction of various units, buildings, and landscape features remains clear and definable even when zooming out. The game does a very good job of maintaining proper scaling of human, animal, and monster figures in context with houses, temples, ruins, and other architectural structures, giving every map a realistic look that compares very well with all the other recent RTS title out on the shelves. Zooming in to examine the character models up-close indicates that they are not quite as high-res as they could be, but since I played the game in a drawn-back, 'over-the-shoulder' perspective it didn't emerge as a major flaw.
Spell effects are very nice, as is the rendering of vegetation, rock formations, snow, and volcanic terrain. Units assume a blue coloring when obscured by interposed structures, which makes them easy to see and prevents the player from having to resort to extended mouse-button work to locate "hidden" units.
Overall, my modest Athlon XP 2400, 1 Gig RAM, and Radeon 9800SE (128 MB) handled SpellForce's graphics pretty well. There was some degree of slowdown when lots of units were onscreen at once, but it usually resolved once a sufficient number of units had been killed and no longer required animation. Screenshots of the upcoming SpellForce 2 have been trickling out from Phenomic and they look amazing. It's not yet clear what kind of system it will take to handle the graphics of the sequel, but I might be willing to invest in some upgrading in order to get them in all their glory.
The other reviewer have noted that the voice acting can be less than impressive at times, but I didn't think it was so awful as to detract from the game's playability. I'm willing to give an overseas dev team a little slack when it comes to translating for the English-speaking market. It does seem like the developers rounded up some native German speakers with some knowledge of English to do the bulk of the dialogue, but I think this says more about how well the foreign-language programs work in the German school system than anything else (I have an easier time understanding Germans speaking English than, say, a Scottsman speaking English...just tune into those British drama shows that appear on PBS and try to tell me what on earth the characters are saying).
The soundtrack is very, very good, and can stand side-by-side right with Diablo 2, Morrowind, the Baldur's Gate series, and Divine Divinity / Beyond Divinity. It has the right kind of grandeur and epic scope and lends the perfect aural atmosphere to the doings on-screen.