When comparing Spellforce 3 vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best RPG games on Steam?” Dark Souls III is ranked 16th while Spellforce 3 is ranked 44th. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Two people can play the whole campaign together
You can play through the entire story of Spellforce 3 with a friend. One person will control one companion at a time as you progress through battles, the main scenario and any side quests of your choosing.
Pro Mature story and interesting characters
The story is set in the year 518 after the Mage Wars between groups of rebellious mages and the ruling class of royalty. Now the war-torn lands are thrust into another conflict as a new ruler, the Lord Marshal, tries to restore peace through autocracy. As the main character, your father was a rebel mage, but in the current day, you're a member of the royal army. Spellforce 3's story challenges you to choose whether you'll remain loyal to your family's history or your place in the army, tackling mature subjects of authoritarianism and betrayal along the way.
Characters are also fun to get to know, like Yria, an elven huntress skilled in archery and healing magic. She's a down-to-earth and friendly companion, with great banter between her and your main character about the nearby scenery or the latest rat-filled dungeon you find yourselves in. Situations like these are clever and well-written, encouraging you to play through more of the game to find out what else your companions have to say as you go along.
Pro Full voice acting
Everything in Spellforce 3 from character dialog to loading screen lore text is fully voice-acted. Main party members and the narrator all have top-quality delivery that sounds believable. Side characters and other, less important characters could have had their voice acting scrapped altogether, as they don't sound anywhere near as good as the rest of the cast. But the game still boats full voice acting for everyone, even if the quality varies here and there.
Pro Player armies are customizable with different factions
As you progress through the game, you'll get to pick which factions of races you want for your army: humans, elves, or orcs, all with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Humans have a balanced mix of weaker units and more powerful ones to even things out. Elves have fewer units overall, but their ranged units have superior reach at the cost of less damage. Orcs are more aggressive with a larger selection of units, while sacrificing ranged options. For fort-building, you have your own outpost where you can create buildings to fortify the space. You can supply resources to elves to build turrets on your outpost, while orcs have weaker structures that need to be built in larger quantities, and humans again have a more balanced offering of standard construction.
Pro Solid framerate
During large battles with dozens of army units and enemies on the field, the game's framerate is mostly stable. Aside from instances of bugs or glitches, performance is solid and reliable. The recommended system requirements list an Intel Core i7-4790, AMD FX-8350 with 8GB of RAM. As long as your specs are near those requirements, you'll have a smooth experience.
Pro Great mix of RTS and RPG mechanics
Spellforce 3 features top-down, fast-paced combat, ordering your army units across the field to fight and reach objectives, and collecting resources like wood and metals to build forts along your outpost. The game also has a story with player-choices, skill trees, loot, in-depth inventory management, and weapon, armor, and appearance customization for your party members. Everything fits well into a unique blend of RTS and RPG mechanics, where one moment you're focusing on resource management with your army, and the next you're engaging in banter between your companions as you traverse through lush forests or peaceful towns.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con Polarizing ending
Some aspects of the ending feel rushed and unfinished, with certain events that don't live up to how much the story spent building up to these moments. Some players will feel that the ending works well while others will disagree.
Con No tactical pause during combat
Even though Spellforce 3 has the methodical combat that you'd expect from a real-time strategy game, there's no ability to pause the action before making your next move. Some battles will have you scrambling to keep up with the pace. You won't be able to slow down and take your time to think about which abilities you want to use.
Con Army units are weak in combat compared to party members
Soldiers are powerful in numbers, but this is the extent of their usefulness in battle. Your companions, on the other hand, have special, flashy abilities that deal tons of area of effect damage, and most of your time spent in battle revolves around managing these skills. In combat, your army only seems to exist to soak up damage and protect your main party members. It's a waste of potential.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.