SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest Review

RPG part, RTS part

As for RPGs, SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest provides a lot of information to the player. Stats, damage types, resistances, abilities, names, places and traditions assault the player from jumping. Once you have a few hours on your hands, the game feels a little more manageable, but getting to that point requires patience and an open wiki page.

Combat during the RPG sections is like getting behind the wheel of a 747 after reading only the safety booklet. Enemies prove to be a major threat from the start, quickly killing any group that bites more than it can chew. The fast pace of combat requires the player to study their spells and hotkeys before battle, otherwise the humble dwarves decimate an unsuspecting group. Due to the camera perspective and visual style, there is an added difficulty in determining exactly who is attacking who and with what.

Soul Harvest also introduces RTS aspects without much context, assuming RTS experience or knowledge of previous games. Again, the perspective and realistic visual style doesn’t do much to emphasize units or actions that are important to the uninitiated. To be fair, once these mechanics snap, they form a totally repairable RTS. The steep learning curve makes it difficult to get to that point.

Switching between these two styles of play involves a very distinct whiplash. Just when the RPG combat starts to freeze or the story gets interesting, the game will start an RTS section. Just as the player learns to micromanage their units, the game reverts to simpler RPG. There really isn’t a sense of cohesion between the two styles of play. Rather, they feel like two different games that the player switches between.

History

Any great RPG needs a good story, and thankfully SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest delivers. Interesting characters and choices keep the player engaged in the Nortander realm. The game features a fully voiced narrative campaign, with solid performance that brings the world to life. The story takes place in classic Dungeons and Dragons style, with missions and characters that offer real choices and dilemmas.

Soul Harvest manages to tell an epic story of kingdoms and wars, while also focusing on the more personal story of the main character. Disgraced general, your character returns to Nortander after years away from home. The queen entrusts you with leadership, appointing you as the new head of the army. From there, the player unravels a storyline involving dwarves, dark elves and the fate of the kingdom.

The writing, especially in the dialogues, stands out as particularly engaging. Backed by a large cast of voice actors, the RPG elements work very well. Missions offer interesting stories and characters to explore. The dialogue options provide a sense of role play not often found in modern role playing games. Usually the need to record voiceover limits the possible dialogue and branching options, but Soul Harvest manages to avoid those pitfalls gracefully.