Posted on: December 2, 2018

lankester

Games: 78 Reviews: 9

Good idea, poor execution

The game leans more towards RPG, with lots of dialogues. Character progression is far from impressive, the selection of skills is common across characters, with usually only one branch (out of 3 or 4) specific to a character. Skills in each tree (usually around 8 per tree) are very generic and boring. XP gain is extremely imbalanced and comes almost exclusively from quests, which makes killing monsters a bit pointless (spend a few minutes fighting a boss-level monster and get 200 xp, when you need 20k to level - that kind of stuff). Inventory management is not good and itemisation relies on giving you endless copies of the same items with exactly the same stats. Tactical combat is the best example of how a good idea ended up badly implemented. Pressing alt brings up a context-sensitive radial menu for quick access to skills - however, this is very difficult to control during a battle, due to poor camera control, constant movement of units and a fairly badly made UI, where not all clicks register and targeting is often imprecise. The RTS portion is a micromanagement freak's dream, with convoluted design (the whole workers / carriers concept), sector management, etc. on top of it all. There is no option to slow down or pause the game and when the AI starts sending never ending waves at your base - often from several directions simultaneously, the whole RTS design shows its weakness in full light. The game runs smoothly most of the time, except occasional strange FPS drops during cinematics. There is an incredible amount of loading screens - each area transfer pops up a loading screen (zones are fairly small, so you'll be transferring a lot!) and even the simple task of exiting the game can take up to 30 seconds, while you're staring at yet another loading screen (!) claiming to be cleaning up stuff, before the game finally shuts down. Overall: not an impressive game. If it's heavily discounted, it might be worth a try, otherwise it's not really worth it...

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Posted on: March 16, 2025

mishabrun

Games: 274 Reviews: 4

Absolutely not DRM-FREE

I don't care that this is not a review, the game deserves it. You need internet to use almost every part of the game, including skirmishes with bots. I'm fine with requiring it for online multiplayer, that's a given. The only option you have if offline, is the campaign in any of the games. GOG's DRM-FREE policy is incredibly flexible with this one.

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Posted on: June 17, 2019

sinsiliux

Verified owner

Games: 90 Reviews: 2

Great RPG, above average RTS

As an RTS it lacks in some aspects, but as an RPG it's absolutely great. Pros: - Great story - Interesting skill trees with an interesting ability combination system - Interesting characters with their own backstories - Minor descisions can affect story - Beautiful graphics - RTS layer that adds to feeling you're not a lone person fighting, you have armies that help you - On the other hand taking on an army of 50 using only your heroes feels really satisfying - Buildings have lots of hp so there's no need to have high APM to defend your base Cons: - It's often hard to distinguish anything in minimap without opening it - With 4 heroes each having 3 different skills combat can be spammy. Especially if you have a lot of high interlligence/willpower heroes that regenerate focus points quickly - Factions are very similar with minor differences - Finding resource nodes can take some time if region is big - Mining out resources node only results in one notification meaning it can be easy to miss it or forget about it if you were in the middle of the battle - To see your idle workers you have to hover over region when map is open which doesn't really scale when you have 10 regions

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Posted on: December 30, 2020

RestartGame

Verified owner

Games: 279 Reviews: 14

A bit clunky, but still good

This game is much better than its predecessors on many aspects. + The RPG parts are good. + The voice acting is great and high budget. Feat. General Geralt. + The story is well crafted and fully voice acted. + Graphics are great + The characters are interesting and fleshed out. Too bad you can't recruit the dark elf. + The lore is pretty standard but easily digestible + The game on the hardest setting has you fight and obliterate LITERALLY ENTIRE SCREENS OF CONSTANT ENEMIES. This is awesome! Still it has some downsides - AI is pretty basic - UI is clunky - Animations often glitch, ambient characters usually glitch during cutscenes - RTS economic elements are clunky and hard to manage - No really special units on the different races. It's always pikes vs cavalry vs soldiers and no abilities on units - RPG elements stop mattering after a while and the 3 active abilities limit stops you quite early from becoming a demigod or exploring new abilities Still had a good time for 70 hours

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Posted on: December 11, 2021

mainbrace

Games: 288 Reviews: 8

Good RPG, Passable RTS

Disclaimer: I received Reforced for free as I already owned SF3, this is awesome, thank you. First off RPG - Good story, good writing, good voice acting, all of this can keep me playing despite the parts of the game I have problems with. The visuals are also excellent and the music is good as well. None of the charaters are complete idots, their actions have reasons and make sense from their point of view, there are no comically evil villians in sight and I love it. Now the RTS part - It is passable at best, lots of frustrating elements that really bring the entire game down. There is a good variety of units and structures to build and each faction feels unique. To start off my biggest gripe, the Artificial Stupidity is very apparant, enemy aggression is ludicrious and you will be attacked by massive hordes almost immediately, good luck trying to scout or attack between the massive enemy waves. This may just be my personal preference for smaller unit tacics, but death balls are no fun for me. Enemy pathfinding is also really bad, they will sprint through 3 occupied territories in order to attck a different outpost stopping for nothing. Once they get to their intended target the will realise they don't have the strength to destroy it, turn around and run all the way back. There is no unit formations (that thing that was in Age of Empires 2), your units just run in a massive clump, medics in particular seem to really want to die as they run into the center of the enemy. Some things just don't make sense to me, I can build a forge in early missions to upgrade my units, but I can't actually build any of the upgrades so what is the point of letting me build it? Overall: It is a verry good RPG but is let down by some frustrating elements of the RTS system. If it were not for those SF3 would get a 4.5 from me at least.

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