Another nostalgic game for me and a big jump compared to the first entry. The blend of RPG and RTS got toned down a little bit, which actually was positive for me. It worked fine and I enjoyed the story a lot.

A fine mixture of real time strategy (RTS) and role playing game (RPG). It was the unique concept of the Spellforce franchise and I think it works really well. To give you a better explanation I will describe both parts. RPG part: Your created main character and party level up and learn abilities like in an RPG. There are some branches for abilities and you should plan ahead as you cant learn all abilities. Level cap is 30 as you cant get enough experience to reach level 31 (by far!). Your party members are always a bit behind your level. There are tons of weapons and equipment to find or buy from merchants. Most have restrictions to learned abilities and / or level. For example you cant use plate armor or longbows without the corresponding ability. There are lot of side quest for bonus experience or useful items. Some are continuous through the game (follow up quests). Tip: If you find a character named Dr. Mauser in a sidequest early on write down or memorize what the other NPC character says what is needed (Will take an eternity until you can make sense out of this). RTS part: You are in control of a faction, harvest resources, building structures and recruiting / producing units. There are 3 resources with stone, silver and lenya that are limited per map. Your workers are used to harvest them and build buildings. There are multiple fractions which play / are a bit different. I say fractions as these consist of multiple groups like your first alliance is made out of humans, elves and dwarfs for example. However you have not access to all of them immediately as the alliance has fractured and you must recruit the support for the others first. This gives you access to more buildings and new troops when you build the upgrades in your headquarter (and a higher unit limit that you should not underestimate). Each unit has his / her own stats and some have unique abilities. Better ones require more space as the strongest unit the titans require 5 spaces and to have build all available upgrades for the groups in your headquarter. As you level up your units too but not to the same level (Will be at an overall lower level than your main character and party). So far for this. While your party is stronger than the other units they are not overpowered and will fall to groups of enemies or use of poor strategies. Gameplay wise the missions have a good variety and a few are challenging. Some have also multiple approaches to succeed. The RPG and RPG elements mixed better than I expected. I must also point out that they put a lot of thought and care in the user interface. There are a lot of helpful additions on the screen like easily grouping units, fast access to unit producing buildings and waypoints to shorten travels to name a few. Story wise it is solid fantasy. Your character is a Shaikan who are a special kind of humans which are blessed and cursed by their bloodline. They have something I will describe as dragonblood that makes them stronger, faster and more durable. They can even resurrect the dead with their blood if it they died not too long ago (Only party members with a shown timer. Also not necromancy as corpses and skeletons would be impossible to revive this way) and summon / teleport their kind to themselves (Main character only). The curse is that they have the will or influence of their father / creator in their bloodline. He was a man who challenged the gods as they must come down to the world to stop him (No other mortal being archived this!). This influence can corrupt them and lead to some past events that left their race branded as untrustworthy and evil but also well respected (reluctant by many!) for their battle prowess and abilities. The story starts when your main character is warned by the halfblood female darkelf Nightsong about a coup in their kingdom and a coming attack on the Shaikan. As their leader sensed a greater danger you are send out to get help. So the story starts and it develops further as this is just the beginning of the struggles. The story delivers and kept me engaged even if I saw two mayor twists coming from miles away but it were twists that were enjoyable. The graphics looked excellent for the time and while they are outdated today they are not ugly. The soundtrack is really good and I liked a few themes. On the negative side there are a few bugs. In the penultimate map there is a puzzle. From there on the camera strikes when you try to solve it. You can reach the final map but going anywhere else before freezes the camera in a position that prevents you from continuing. Same for another sidequest puzzle. Read that it is caused by having the Dragon Storm add on installed (not verified by me). Warning: The gold edition has the add on by default. Overall this was an excellent game with a mixture that I did not expect to work this well. I think it is still worth playing even when it is a bit outdated.

Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars is a fun and beefy experience, albeit deeply flawed.