June 5, 2006 - In the past, there have been a fair amount of games that combined the RPG and RTS genres. Many of these involve just adding RPG elements to a fully-developed RTS engine, but developer Phenomic went a different path with SpellForce, instead opting to start with a more RPG-centric form of gameplay, and adding RTS elements into the mix, creating the impression that a single hero was now commanding an army, as opposed to having the hero thrown into an already-developed fighting force.

Apparently, the game has sold well enough in the past to warrant development of a sequel. SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars takes the existing form of gameplay established by the first game and seeks to add more to the story and gameplay. Like peanut butter and chocolate (or jelly, if that's your thing,) one would think that the two genres would go very well together. Well, they do, on paper. The game strives to put the two together for a good experience, and is met with mixed results.

You'll take control of a member of the Shaikan. They're a group of descendants of a man who shared his blood with a dragon, and because of that you've got the ability to circumvent death for others, as well as a maddening voice in your head that wants you to cause chaos. The campaign story involves the typical fantasy clichés: a great evil army is sweeping over the land, destroying everything in its path, and it's up to you and a merry group of allies to fight against it. The storyline, while routine, is done fairly well, and while the average script won't get you pulled into the characters, the epic scope of the storyline will. Just watch out for the voice acting: some of it can be alright, but there are dialogues here and there that just reek of mediocrity.

The RPG elements dominate most of the game, whether you're gaining experience, equipping yourself with new weapons, or shopping at a local merchant. In typical RPG fashion, there are quests to gain and complete throughout the game. Some are required to progress the story, but there are many others that can be found scattered about, optional quests that you can take if you've got some spare time, for the usual reward of experience and new equipment. Gain enough experience, and you level up, gaining a skill point to use to advance your ability. Thankfully, you're able to return to any area you've visited in the past at any time, so you can leave a quest for later if you so desire, returning when you feel like it.

The skill trees are broken into two categories: magic and combat, and allow near-unrestricted access to both. This means you can become a sword-wielding healer if you so desire, or a duel-dagger-wielding practitioner of the black arts. This flexibility is enjoyable, since there's a wide array of abilities to choose from, whether it's the heavy armor and equipment, the ranged-type weapons, or the wide variety of spellcraft in which to obliterate foes. The problems arise in a condition called 'points spent.' This means that, though you may want to raise your level of Heavy Combat, you'll have to spend a few more ability points before you can do so. What this means is that the game forces you to generalize your abilities, preventing you from specializing exclusively in any particular branch of a skill tree. Despite this, however you still can specialize in one of the two 'main' trees. While you might have to spend points in ranged combat in order to get more levels in heavy combat, if you don't like magic, you don't have to go anywhere near it.

The items in the game are perhaps the most lacking element in SpellForce 2. While you might feel that you're getting that much more powerful when your sword does twenty times more damage per hit, when enemies' hit points range in the thousands (easily), the feeling of improved ability diminishes. Likewise, you'll be picking up a lot of equippable items through the game that, while they seem different, really aren't. Most of the differences between them are superficial, and half the time to get anything worthwhile, you'll be waiting for you hero to level up to the required level, only to find that it's really not really worth equipping the item.

The RTS element has been simplified somewhat from the first game, reducing the number of resources to collect to three. As it stands on its own, however, the system feels meager, like there's not quite enough there to warrant a full-fledged RTS experience. There's nothing that will surprise anyone in this area of the game, whether it's building craftsmen to harvest supplies or producing units from specific buildings. There's also the noticeable lack of a technology tree, which means that your units, as weak as they are, are going to stay like that.