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Successful first attempt

This is the music review. Here you can find the game review of
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn
and the music review of
The Breath of Winter (2004) | Shadow of the Phoenix (2004).

Even though the term 'Spellforce' is a neologism created by the German studio Phenomic Game Development for its video game series of the same name, it can be translated in two ways: Spell as in magic and spelling. And while the latter version would actually be a cool way to quantify the skills of participants in a spelling bee, the developers were probably more interested in the arcane interpretation.

SpellForce is set in the world of Eo, which is populated by the classic fantasy setting of humans, elves, orcs and dwarves as well as the classic conflict of good versus evil. Unlike my other reviews, I'm in the comfortable position here of not having to say much about the actual game, as I've already done that! So, as one of my first ever reviews, I'm happy to recommend that one to anyone who wants to know more it gameplay-wise. Now that that's out of the way, let's get to what Past Mattis described as 'fantastic' back in 2016; let's get to the music.

The compositional commission for SpellForce: The Order of Dawn was awarded to Pierre Langer and Tilman Sillescu, who founded the company Dynamedion in 2001 - a name that we will be reading again and again in future reviews, and hopefully for a long time to come. Because what the two composers deliver here is top class. And this despite the fact that it was their first work with their company. These laudatory tones may be due to my nostalgia for the game, but the score for the expansion The Breath of Winter won the German Developer Award for Best Soundtrack in 2004, so I can't be that far off the mark.

Anywho, subjectivity and all, back to the review status. The soundtrack to The Order of Dawn features 34 tracks of varying lengths. While most are between one and three minutes, there are eight breakouts that ironically last around eight minutes. Why is that relevant? Well, anyone who has read other reviews of mine will know that my average attention span, and therefore the amount of time I spend focusing when evaluating music, usually ends after three to five minutes - equivalent to the length of an average pop song or my mother's tantrums back in the day when I went to the PC without doing my homework.

In contrast to other scores with comparably long tracks or my mother's harangues, the music of SpellForce does not bore. What we hear here is not a theme that repeats itself over long stretches and, if you're lucky, varies, but a multi-faceted, acoustic journey. Let's take The Shiel as an example, which begins deliberately with its drums and strings, a quiet melody that continues to build over the first minute, expanded by wind instruments and rounded off by vocals as something sublime. Shortly afterwards, the melody breaks off, withdraws, we hear a soft plucked instrument. Suddenly dissonances, a piano that frantically plays individual notes as if a ball were dribbling slowly to the ground, accompanied by menacing vocals. Then come dark flutes, hard drums and then ... strings that take us out of the darkness and lead us back to the light, to gentle sounds that build up one last time before it comes to an end. An emotional journey that would have taken three tracks with other scores and would never have resulted in this cohesive experience.

This is just one example of the class with which Langer and Sillescu show off their skills - and it can easily be transferred to the other tracks: be it the brute battle tracks such as Attack of the Fist (Battle Blade), Era of the Orcs or Enemy at the Camp. The calm and soulful themes that we mostly hear in villages or towns such as Greyfell (Sharrowdale), Welcome to Liannon and Greydusk Vale. Or corny fantasy fare à la Elen’s Blessing (Elves and Angels), whose chorales sound like a tree-hugger ballad turned song, but which fits perfectly with the graceful elves and makes me sway along quietly.

At the same time, the soundtrack deliberately plays with expectations, works with different instrumentation such as piano and glockenspiel, uses different tempos, can be fantasy, medieval and then suddenly ice-cold Icelandic idyll. And it doesn't shy away from working with dissonances, following the style of the actual game, which may seem like a standard Tolkien excursion at first glance, but has enough of its own to make it more than just one of many. At least that's true for me, and therefore I will continue to enjoy the tracks from SpellForce: The Order of Dawn and its successors The Breath of Winter und Shadow of the Phoenix for a long time to come.

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Nostalgia warning

The rating of the individual tracks is purely subjective and clearly colored by my own experience with the game. You can find out more in the article About Nostalgia.

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	Cenwen	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
02	Enchanted Plains	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
03	Grim's Betrayal	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
04	Mirraw Thur	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
05	Freeing of Fial Darg	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
06	The Nevershade Frontier	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
07	Into the Abyss	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
08	Claiming the Shadow Blade	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
09	Attack on Fastholme	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
10	Tirganach	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
11	Master of the Runes	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
12	Winter Deep	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
13	Lost in the Cold	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	1
14	Aryns Battle	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
15	Credits [Bonus]	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
16	Return of Cenwen [Bonus]	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4

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The Breath of Winter

The soundtrack of The Breath of Winter picks up seamlessly where the soundtrack of the main game left off, which means: once again high quality and melodies worth listening to. As the game takes us to the arctic regions of the ice elves, the focus this time is more on the freezing cold sounds of bells and wind chimes, which are more often combined with gentle harps and female chorales - in other words, ice plus elves.

As a result, the overall work lacks some of the instrumental variety of The Order of Dawn, but the main theme, which runs through several tracks, is a real listen. And the usual trinity of thrilling battle tracks (Attack on Fastholme, Aryns Battle), gentle melodies (Mirraw Thur, Tirganach) and cheesy tunes (Cenwen, Return of Cenwen [Bonus]) still works brilliantly. Brilliantly enough for the score to win the 2004 German Computer Games Award for Best Soundtrack. Now if that's not something ...

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	Cenwen	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
02	Enchanted Plains	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
03	Grim's Betrayal	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
04	Mirraw Thur	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
05	Freeing of Fial Darg	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
06	The Nevershade Frontier	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
07	Into the Abyss	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
08	Claiming the Shadow Blade	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
09	Attack on Fastholme	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
10	Tirganach	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
11	Master of the Runes	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
12	Winter Deep	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
13	Lost in the Cold	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	1
14	Aryns Battle	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
15	Credits [Bonus]	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
16	Return of Cenwen [Bonus]	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4

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Shadow of the Phoenix

If I wanted to write these reviews for a magazine or run a serious blog, I would probably have to come up with a certain number of characters for each post. Since I don't do that, I don't need to suck anything out of my fingertips for the second and last addon to SpellForce, called Shadow of the Phoenix. Once again, we have high-quality music that is on a par with the main game and, in contrast to The Breath of Winter , now deals with the sunny south, which is why the score this time sounds more like the oriental sun and less like northern frost. It has a wonderful feel, is fun to listen to and, despite the nostalgia warning, is once again a clear recommendation from me.

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	Army of Darkness	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
02	Battle of the Undead	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
03	Empyria	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
04	The Kathai	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
05	Battle on	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
06	Combat and Fight	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
07	Tirganach	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
08	Human Village	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
09	City of Souls	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	2
10	Arena	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
11	Plains of Blackwater	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
12	Plain Darkend	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
13	Plains of Myth	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
14	The Bone Temple	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	3
15	Plains of Devastation	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	2
16	The Gorge	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	2
17	Close Combat	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	5
18	The Clockwork Crypts	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	2
19	Frostweaver Rift	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
20	The Clockwork Crypts (Whisper)	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	1
21	Plain Enchanted	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	2
22	Call of the Dead	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4
23	Rune Master	Tilman Sillescu; Pierre Langer	4