I'll admit I was hooked into this game by the "Anime" trailer, where two hot girls (who have problems too), are discussing their school life when they suddenly hear gunshots. But its fine becuase the school shooter is a guy they know and flirt with to get stuff out of. What the f... did i just watch.

Hats of the the game being fully voice acted, and as dark and edgy as the topics are i did find myself chuckling at the game, and the delivery of their lines.

See you in hell <3

Spellforce is an RTS/RPG developed by” Phenomic Game development” and came out in 2003. My review is very much with rose tinted glasses as I do have a lot of nostalgia for it.

Spellforce brings me back to when me and my brother were young teens, our parents had bought us a “gaming pc” and a handful of games for it. We picked it up right away, fell in love with the fantasy world and began building our own settlements filled with humans, elves, orcs (and the many other races).

What blew our minds was the ability to scroll down into the game, giving you a third person perspective and manually taking control of the avatar. Allowing us to stroll through the little settlement we had built. This only continued throughout the game, as the levels were huge, the battles were fierce and we found ourselves wasting countless hours trying to kill every darn enemy/camp out there if possible.

When I was younger I didn’t really follow the story, I knew I was a rune warrior out to save the world and I just let my mind fill in the blanks. Coming back to this game as an adult and taking my time to engage with each character this time, I can safely say... I kinda get it now?.. Ok that's a lie I don’t really, and I still had to google what was going on at the end. But basically you are a rune warrior that's been summoned to defeat an evil circle mage, you need a phoenix stone to destroy him and prevent him going back in the past and messing everything up... That's a very vague explanation, there is way more to it, play the game.

As far as the game looks, I really enjoy the “old pc” graphics, there is still a lot of creativity with the characters and the settlements you can create, each designed around each race. The elves being my favorite with all their buildings fitting in with nature, very much giving me Rivendell vibes. Everything is very bright and colorful. (remember this for future reviews of games in the series)

The voice acting... Ok here's where it flops for most and kills all immersion. But again, growing up with many many games with dire voice acting I feel like I've developed some immunity to it and think it adds to the charm/humor.

My only real gripe about the game is at times it can feel a little bit slow. Mostly due to navigating when doing sidequests. There are “bindstones” that act as teleporters around the map. But in some cases I still had to wait a good few minutes just for my character to dash from one area to the next, just to pick up one item and then wander all the way back to where I came from. (You can get items to increase movement speed, so maybe that would have fixed it. My mage build did not allow me to equip such things).

I feel like I've talked enough about this now.. Maybe? I’m not a reviewer, I just like to waffle on about stuff I like. If you want to check the game out you can get “Spellforce: Platinum edition” on steam or GOG pretty cheap. This includes the base game AND the extra DLC, if you are looking for a new fantasy RTS/RPG to play. :)