Ultimately felt Forced

Spellforce 3: Reforced is an interesting mash up of genres, at its core it’s an RTS game that see’s players managing various resources and taking territories as players travel across a war-torn land. But the other side of this coin is its RPG elements which show their head by way of being able to customize and level up a group of hero characters to the player’s delight.

The narrative is just kind of ok, and really where the RPG elements will shine. As players will work with a handful of heroes that they must take on quests to defeat and loot enemies to become more powerful. With the large variety of skills and abilities players will be able to grow their heroes to fit their desired playstyle. Personally, I had more fun with the ‘Journey’ mode, which is new for the Reforced edition and wasn’t on PC. This mode allows the player to create a character from any of the games available races and skills and then just go out and explore. The endgame being to become the best there is at what you do, and that’s completing quest. But there is an Arena mode which allows players to take their created hero and face off against other players in PvP.

MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $39.99

This is my first game in this franchise and honestly, I was thrown off a bit by the RTS elements at first. Honestly the game could be completed with just the group of heroes, but then it’d basically be Baldur’s Gate. So, to mix it up a bit Spellforce aids in the ability to build bases, and an army through its RTS gameplay. There were only a few missions during the campaign where I really needed an epic number of soldiers as my heroes were beefy enough to handle most challenges. I was grateful of this too because the controls here made it extremely difficult to get my selected troops to attack enemy targets.

The real problem starts to arise when players realize the extreme lack of balance in enemy units. There are some which will eat through troops, and others who are basically just fodder, but there is no rhyme or reason for this, and the lack of a pause function makes it that much more difficult to be able to direct troops efficiently in the heat of battle. While I give the developers credit in bringing this game, in its entirety (which means it includes all the DLC’s that were released for the original PC release) to consoles; the controls sadly make it a chore to play, the longer you play. While it’s true I mostly only play RTS’ on PC due to the ease of controls; there have been lots of examples where developers have been able to offer excellent controller inputs into their console releases; Firaxis and Civ 6 is one alas Spellforce 3: Reforced isn’t one of them.

Spellforce 3: Reforced ends up feeling, well forced more than anything. While I enjoyed the campaign due to the heroes’ personalities more than anything else, the struggle with the controls just really soured the experience for me. Having to fight to get a good angle in which to target enemies or pressing buttons for dear life while moving the camera trying to find the “sweet spot” where the enemy is targetable just sucked a lot of the fun out of the game for me. Graphically speaking, Spellforce is just middle of the road. Not an ugly game, but not at the level of graphics that we are seeing at this point in the next gen cycle; but this is a remaster of a game that came out in 2017 so there is that. All in all this sums up my Spellforce 3: Reforced experience; come for the excellent written and performed heroes (Doug Cockle of Witcher fame is one of the first you meet) as they journey across the land but stay for the sheer fun of Journey mode, where you can write your own story.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.