Crpgnut
2004-01-16 19:48:18 UTC
I decided to purchase this game before it was available in the USA, so I
bought it off Ebay. I've been playing the game for a couple of weeks now,
off and on,
and still haven't decided if it's my cup or tea or not. Let me preface this
post with the fact that I rarely play anything other than crpgs. The only
strategy games that I've ever played were the Heroes of Might and Magic
games.
Spellforce seems to be a simplistic RTS game with a twist. The general of
all the armies in the game is a character created by you. Your avatar is
something called a Rune Warrior. This is an immortal soldier whose soul is
bound into a rune. Death is an inconvenience, nothing more. This avatar is
straight from a fantasy crpg. You have typical stats: Strength, Dexterity,
Stamina, etc., that
each start at 25 points. You have 30 points to distribute to these to decide
what type of avatar you want. If a White Mage, ie healer, you'll choose
Wisdom and
Charisma just like you would for a D&D cleric. If a Heavy Combat specialist,
you'll choose Strength and Stamina. You are not forced into class choices if
you want to specialize in one school, you can, or you can try your luck as a
Jack of all trades. Sounds like a crpg now doesn't it?
The problem for crpgers is that the hero is often an afterthought on several
maps. Each map contains several areas where you can explore with just your
hero and maybe a few other heroes. Your avatar can summon other heroes
who have stats that cannot be changed by you. All experience earned by them
goes to your character. This is kinda fun but you will need to build an army
on
most of the maps in the game. This is the non-fun part for me. Building a
settlement and an army can take a couple of hours real-time on every map.
There is no automation of the army building. You have to summon workers,
find materials, build buildings, summon army units, form parties and then
march them to enemy camps. It's nearly the exact same steps for every single
map. The only difference is that the type of units change every 3 or 4 maps.
You'll start with human units, then elven, dwarven, orcish, dark elven, and
finally trollish units. Each one has different looking buildings but it's
the same
boring steps to create each.
The game is real-time and this can be problematic too. Let's say you're
building a camp in one part of the map and exploring with your heroes in
another part.
If you run into battle with your heroes at the same time your camp gets
attacked
you have to constantly switch viewpoints to keep everyone alive. This can be
quite hectic! If you stay on one party too long the other might get wiped
out. AI in the game is very weak. Soldiers will not protect non-combat units
without specific commands to do so. Sometimes you want to hide your base but
your allied units will follow enemy creatures to their base and you'll get
discovered before you're ready. Hero units have no AI of their own. They
won't cast a single spell or initiate combat without instructions. If you
set them to hold position and guard an area, they never strike the first
blow. They wait until your units are whacked before fighting back. Sometimes
they won't engage even if other units are being attacked. Scripts would have
helped this game immensely.
If you command your heroes to automatically heal wounded units if you have
x amount of mana, that would be great. Remember Baldur's Gate had this.
A fighter hero could automatically attack the strongest or weakest member
of the enemy, using any special attacks as needed. None of this made it into
the game, for whatever reason.
Combat reminds me of Divine Divinity. You click on a monster and keep
attacking til one of you is dead. It isn't unusual to have 50 monsters on a
screen
at a time. It gives the feeling of melee. Your hero can be surrounded by
weaker enemies and come out unscathed. That part is very fun. Item drops are
common and mostly random. There are merchants to trade with, but 90% of what
you use, you find. Graphics are top-notch. Most of the programming was
focused on graphics and it shows. Buildings and maps are beautifully drawn.
Creatures look good and there are several nice touches. A wolf will
occasionally stop what it's doing to scratch at a flea, etc. The quests are
all
extremely straight forward. No thinking to get in the way at all.
Each time you raise a skill you have to raise the school that teaches that
skill too. In effect you get one useful point per level:
Let's say I'm a fire mage. The school for fire is Elemental Magic. I get two
points to spend. One point to raise Elemental Magic and the other to raise
my fire magic. A 20th level character could be at best a level 10 fire mage.
That's if he spent every single point on developing fire magic. It's a good
idea to put at least a few points into a combat school so that you can
attack when you're out of mana.
As you can tell, I both hate and love various aspects of the game. I like
the avatar and running around with a small party of heroes. I like the
graphics.
The sound and music are fine. Item collecting and dressing your avatar in
all your well-earned booty is great fun. You can dress your hero characters
up too. Most items will not work for all characters. Each has one or more
requirements before allowing you to equip it. You might need to be of a
certain level or have a certain level of ability in a skill. This is cool.
My main problem with the game is its RTS components. I dislike collecting
wood, stone, etc
on almost every map. I hate building up camps every time. Gaining levels
takes a long time and you only get to increase your skills 2 points for each
level.
Conclusion: I guess the bottom line is that I'm still playing the game. I
don't
think I'll finish it. Eventually I'll get bored of making 15 building camps
with
80 unit armies. That part of the game will wear out my enthusiasm for the
good crpg parts. I do feel that I've gotten my money's worth out of the
game.
bought it off Ebay. I've been playing the game for a couple of weeks now,
off and on,
and still haven't decided if it's my cup or tea or not. Let me preface this
post with the fact that I rarely play anything other than crpgs. The only
strategy games that I've ever played were the Heroes of Might and Magic
games.
Spellforce seems to be a simplistic RTS game with a twist. The general of
all the armies in the game is a character created by you. Your avatar is
something called a Rune Warrior. This is an immortal soldier whose soul is
bound into a rune. Death is an inconvenience, nothing more. This avatar is
straight from a fantasy crpg. You have typical stats: Strength, Dexterity,
Stamina, etc., that
each start at 25 points. You have 30 points to distribute to these to decide
what type of avatar you want. If a White Mage, ie healer, you'll choose
Wisdom and
Charisma just like you would for a D&D cleric. If a Heavy Combat specialist,
you'll choose Strength and Stamina. You are not forced into class choices if
you want to specialize in one school, you can, or you can try your luck as a
Jack of all trades. Sounds like a crpg now doesn't it?
The problem for crpgers is that the hero is often an afterthought on several
maps. Each map contains several areas where you can explore with just your
hero and maybe a few other heroes. Your avatar can summon other heroes
who have stats that cannot be changed by you. All experience earned by them
goes to your character. This is kinda fun but you will need to build an army
on
most of the maps in the game. This is the non-fun part for me. Building a
settlement and an army can take a couple of hours real-time on every map.
There is no automation of the army building. You have to summon workers,
find materials, build buildings, summon army units, form parties and then
march them to enemy camps. It's nearly the exact same steps for every single
map. The only difference is that the type of units change every 3 or 4 maps.
You'll start with human units, then elven, dwarven, orcish, dark elven, and
finally trollish units. Each one has different looking buildings but it's
the same
boring steps to create each.
The game is real-time and this can be problematic too. Let's say you're
building a camp in one part of the map and exploring with your heroes in
another part.
If you run into battle with your heroes at the same time your camp gets
attacked
you have to constantly switch viewpoints to keep everyone alive. This can be
quite hectic! If you stay on one party too long the other might get wiped
out. AI in the game is very weak. Soldiers will not protect non-combat units
without specific commands to do so. Sometimes you want to hide your base but
your allied units will follow enemy creatures to their base and you'll get
discovered before you're ready. Hero units have no AI of their own. They
won't cast a single spell or initiate combat without instructions. If you
set them to hold position and guard an area, they never strike the first
blow. They wait until your units are whacked before fighting back. Sometimes
they won't engage even if other units are being attacked. Scripts would have
helped this game immensely.
If you command your heroes to automatically heal wounded units if you have
x amount of mana, that would be great. Remember Baldur's Gate had this.
A fighter hero could automatically attack the strongest or weakest member
of the enemy, using any special attacks as needed. None of this made it into
the game, for whatever reason.
Combat reminds me of Divine Divinity. You click on a monster and keep
attacking til one of you is dead. It isn't unusual to have 50 monsters on a
screen
at a time. It gives the feeling of melee. Your hero can be surrounded by
weaker enemies and come out unscathed. That part is very fun. Item drops are
common and mostly random. There are merchants to trade with, but 90% of what
you use, you find. Graphics are top-notch. Most of the programming was
focused on graphics and it shows. Buildings and maps are beautifully drawn.
Creatures look good and there are several nice touches. A wolf will
occasionally stop what it's doing to scratch at a flea, etc. The quests are
all
extremely straight forward. No thinking to get in the way at all.
Each time you raise a skill you have to raise the school that teaches that
skill too. In effect you get one useful point per level:
Let's say I'm a fire mage. The school for fire is Elemental Magic. I get two
points to spend. One point to raise Elemental Magic and the other to raise
my fire magic. A 20th level character could be at best a level 10 fire mage.
That's if he spent every single point on developing fire magic. It's a good
idea to put at least a few points into a combat school so that you can
attack when you're out of mana.
As you can tell, I both hate and love various aspects of the game. I like
the avatar and running around with a small party of heroes. I like the
graphics.
The sound and music are fine. Item collecting and dressing your avatar in
all your well-earned booty is great fun. You can dress your hero characters
up too. Most items will not work for all characters. Each has one or more
requirements before allowing you to equip it. You might need to be of a
certain level or have a certain level of ability in a skill. This is cool.
My main problem with the game is its RTS components. I dislike collecting
wood, stone, etc
on almost every map. I hate building up camps every time. Gaining levels
takes a long time and you only get to increase your skills 2 points for each
level.
Conclusion: I guess the bottom line is that I'm still playing the game. I
don't
think I'll finish it. Eventually I'll get bored of making 15 building camps
with
80 unit armies. That part of the game will wear out my enthusiasm for the
good crpg parts. I do feel that I've gotten my money's worth out of the
game.