RTSs on consoles don’t have a storied history, but they do have a relatively long one. I can remember in the 1990s seeing Westwood try and port Command & Conquer to the PSOne along with what looked like a cludgy mouse-style controller. It is fair to say that this didn’t spark a craze of porting or developing RTS’ for consoles. Despite some notable and fun RTS games like the HALO Wars series, strategy fans on consoles have had to make do with tactics games and the odd turn-based grand strategy games such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and various ports of the Civ and Tropico franchises. Spellforce is probably the second-best attempt, after HALO Wars, of implementing RTS on console and is well worth your time.
Spellforce 3: Reforced released on PC some 5 years ago and was well received. The mix of RTS and RPG works well and adds a little more of the RPG spice to the genre than the excellent implementations by Blizzard in Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2. The game’s first tutorial gets you into the heart of the action as you take control of a high-level party sent out to crush some heretics. The game starts off like any other CRPG set in a high fantasy world. Watching from an isometric point of view you select your party and send them to points on the map by clicking where you want them to go. Using the shoulder buttons brings up radial menus that allow you to use party member special attacks. Thankfully the designers didn’t decide that in order to attach some urgency to gameplay that when the menu is active that the game slows down instead of pauses.
The introduction to the base-building elements is a little intimidating even for veterans of the genre. I say this as trying to ignore years of muscle memory keyed to keyboard and mouse, and yes not a little bit of PC smugness about superior control schemes, is very difficult. The game’s onscreen text is a little small and dense making absorbing intricacies of the scheme as well as the resource-gathering mechanics on top of trying to understand what each building does more difficult than it should be. For newcomers to the genre, I would advise that you spend extra time paying attention to these tips, this will make sure that the game is much more rewarding later on.
Building your base is a little hit and miss. As with any other RTS, there are obviously areas that you cannot build on (water, mountains etc). Like other RTS a green/red indicator will let you know if a building can be placed there and to make it easier the parts of the terrain that cannot support a building will be highlighted in red. This is where the control scheme is a bit too finicky when compared to PC controls. Moving and rotating the proposed schematic around to get the green light is a chore and requires careful manipulation of the thumb sticks. I found it to be a little frustrating, but luckily never enough to have me contemplate quitting the game in frustration.
An RTS worth its salt is only as good as the units you can build and the battles you engage in. While the familiar rock, paper, scissors style of unit advantage and disadvantage is at play here, the later RTS refinements of higher ground being an advantage and the use of formations to gain that sliver of advantage is not evident in this game’s design. Battles will come down to your ability to grow your army as fast as possible to an overwhelming size and basically just overrunning the enemy. While this can be satisfying in the immediacy of your victory it doesn’t give you the satisfaction of knowing that you outsmarted your opponent.
The Spellforce universe is our typical western high fantasy world of elves and humans and magic, basically the Middle Earth template. However, it is not a boring world or story. Playing the son or daughter of the big bad seeking to atone for his sins and prevent cataclysmic destruction is not the most original story, but the execution is top-notch. Couple that with excellent voice acting and a meat campaign and you have a recipe for hours upon hours of high fantasy melodrama and high jinks that will entertain even the most critical of fans.
Graphically the game is definitely not going to tax your PS5. It isn’t “last generation” by any means, but it isn’t cutting edge either. I’d place it in the attractive but not cutting edge category, a game pleasing to the eye but not spectacular.
Spellforce 3 Reforced has a terrible name, a close second to Kingdoms of Amalur Re-reckoning. And while the controls aren’t perfect, they are darn close to it. The game mechanics are a little old-fashioned but in the grand scheme of things that doesn’t matter as it is a good time for veterans of the genre and newcomers alike.
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Developers: Grimlore Games, THQ Nordic
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 5
Reviewed on Xbox and Playstation
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