SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past Review - Fans Only

SpellForce: The Order of Dawn was an RTS/RPG hybrid released in 2003 and over a decade later, publisher Nordic Games is still publishing sequels and stand-alone expansions. The latest release is SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past. With a splash of fresh paint to try and keep up with other modern RTS games, this new stand-alone sets out to end the current story arc so that things can begin anew in the upcoming SpellForce 3. As someone who hasn’t played a SpellForce game in a good long while, how does this compare? Our SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past review will tell you.

The original game was praised for its mix of RTS and RPG style gameplay. The series adopted a logical expansion of Warcraft 3’s hero units with skill trees and inventories, items to loot, and side quests to complete. Demons of the Past continues the formula and adds a new story campaign, as well as new items and abilities.

 

At first glance, this game looks old. That’s because it is - Demons of the Past runs on roughly the same tech that SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars ran on in 2006. However, the developers at Mind Over Matter Studios have managed to add a few graphical touches here and there to ease the eyestrain of an aged engine. What we actually end up with is a game that looks like how I remember Warcraft III looking, but at modern resolutions. The worst happens during the Warcraft-style in-game cutscenes, when the camera gets right up in character’s faces and you can tell how aged the game has become.

The balance of RPG and RTS elements is the big selling point for the SpellForce franchise. Well, let me say that they don’t work all that great here. It’s cool leveling up your hero and distributing points in a WoW style skill tree, finding new items that change the look of your avatar and modify your abilities, and doing other common RPG activities such as buying items at shops. The behind-the-back camera just doesn’t work very well, and issuing commands to your troops via a hotbar isn’t intuitive at all. Managing the skills of multiple heroes and juggling regular troops at the same time is often more frustrating than fun.

Aside from sections in missions where players build bases and gather resources, there are puzzle missions, stealth sections, and side quests. Assuming all the right triggers fire off when they’re supposed to, and that’s an unhealthy assumption, these missions can be frustrating. It took me awhile just to beat the first mission in the campaign because I didn’t realize this super difficult encounter was just bugged - I had to restart to fix it.

With a clumsy camera, frustrating unit management, and an unintuitive skill use system, SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past is a tough sell. Having not followed the series for a long time, the story didn’t have the obvious weight  it would have had if I’d caught up with previous incarnations. While this isn’t the game’s fault, I would warn first-timers that dipping their feet in with this iteration might not be the best idea. If you’re committed to the series, well, then it hasn’t necessarily changed for the worst. There’s new stuff here and Demons of the Past shouldn’t disappoint those fans that want a resolution to a series they’ve been playing for years.