SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest Review

Blending the style of RPG and RTS games, SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest offers an engaging yet clunky fusion of genres.

Taking from the RPG side, SpellForce’s story and characters entertain with solid writing. The RTS elements of the game scratch that strategy itch with a variety of unit types and interesting combat.

In the intermingling of these elements, however, the two genres tend to clash. Either an RTS interrupts a great isometric character RPG, or the RPG simplifies the in-depth strategic combat. SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest suffers from an identity crisis.

Gameplay

SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest tends to overwhelm at first glance. Ambitiously deep mechanics mean Soul Harvest doesn’t teach the player much by playing.

With so many options at your disposal, reading a book about the gameplay feels like a prerequisite to understanding what the hell is going on. The in-game tutorial at the beginning does an okay job of introducing the player to the controls and systems, but the game assumes prior experience with both cRPGs and RTS games.

The nightmarishly cluttered user interface doesn’t give any hints as to what important actions the player should remember. This makes controlling your character feel like a chore before eventually getting used to the lay of the land.