SpellForce 2 - Anniversary Edition

It's a very slow and long, long, long game. If you like games where you're taken on a journey through a high fantasy world with a hybrid of an RTS and RPG then you should definitely like the game. It has a lot of old school sensibilities so be weary of that. The worst aspect o it is inventory management it's as awful as in the first game. The plot of the game is a typical "evil besieged the land go forth fight it" and unite all races of the realm. The lore, oh my god. I think Spellforce has the most obtuse and confusing exposition dump and lore I've ever experienced in a game. You literally have to get a PhD in Spellforce's lore to grasp half the name places, artifacts, and other background bits to even begin to know what the hell is going on. The story itself is pretty simple though so you can get the general idea but they could have done a better job introducing the world and its nuance. Pros: - not original but vivid fantasy world - long journey and plenty of hours of gameplay - a little bit of humor - dozens of quests to complete - it has a lot of old school sensibilities - deep lore Cons: - it has a lot of old school sensibilities - inventory management is messy - quests vary in quality, some are interesting others are downright lazy fetch quests to keep you busy clicking on the map; - confusing exposition dump, If you like early 2000's experimental strategy hybrids then it's a must have.

pretty half assed to not include the extras that were with the original release, when I contacted them I got a very......half assed reply.

Weird story pacing and areas with a lot of empty walking. Almost bug-free and very robust game framework. Sound and music very good. Graphics in general still looking good, although the scaling in anything else than 4:3 stretches and blurres the image. In 4:3 very sharp. Can not customize the keybinds. A clear recommendation, even with all those flaws. Especially if on sale and/or if you like slow-paced, long games.

Summary: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. It takes out the raw prequel parts such as the paper-weak rune warriors and replaces them with stuff that works beefy companions that are helpful for a change instead of straight up dying. If you are new to the series, start w/ this one i.e. SF2 and SF 1&2 segment ranking by most fun: SF2SW > SF2DS >> SF1SotP > SF1OoD > SF1BoW Sounds: SF never had good audio. In SF2, the ear-splitting ambient thing is gone and you no longer have to switch of the sound effects. Graphics: grayish pastel, tends to swallow objects. Pretty even in LQ. Characters do comical fistpumps when they agree. Gameplay: feels very fun and is not SF1-style grind against hordes and massive clean-sweeps on every single map. The Westguard personal fiefdom sim was very fun. Time to beat: 100 h. Much less if you don't 100% (the extra content is the best part of the game, so skipping that is not beneficial.) The Dragon Storm expansion has a short campaign. Some people do not like the streamlined level-up system. The prequel system was basically "everyone besides a melee fighter blows" w/ a ton of non-viable options such as necromancy (no end game prowess), ranged (completely useless if someone melees you i.e. the most common scenario) or mages (cannot take objectives as only melee fighters can damage buildings). Besides pleasing some D&D character sheet purists, the SF1 point allocation system was much less fun, It's great that it's gone. Fixes to the sequel: 1. Quests don't fail easily anymore or punish for not save-scumming or reading a walkthrough. 2. The maps with endlessly respawning enemies are a rarity and often you are given NPC waves to counter-balance them. 3. It is very difficult to mess up a character now and the reliance on the randomly dropping items is greatly reduced. 4. Your troops no longer are a waste of resources. 5. The plot progresses smoothly instad of ten hours of fighting just to get to the next plot guy. And the list goes on. SF2 > SF1

I played SpellForce one when it first came out and thinking of all these games had going for them I couldn't understand why I didn't finish the first game. I just bought 1&2 thinking they would be a delight to actually play through but it all came back to me after minutes of playing. The perspective and camera scrolling are garbage. Not bad like ancient rts bad, but garbage like forget it nvm. The gameplay is challenging in a good way but the screen controls hinder all hopes of enjoying this game.