Review: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Let’s be honest, good western fantasy role-playing titles are incredibly difficult to come by these days. The Fable series has been a massive disappointment this generation, and not everyone is a fan of the Elder Scrolls series. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has been quietly under the radar for a long time. In fact, if I hadn’t walked over to the empty booth at last year’s E3 I wouldn’t have even known it had existed. After spending several hours with 38 Studios first title, I can confidently say it’s one of the better titles this generation.

 Fate is the pivotal essence of creatures and races in Amalur. In the beginning of the game you awake from the dead, disoriented and covered in a pile of rotting flesh; unbound by the rules of fate. Fate is the cornerstone for the story in Kingdoms of Amalur, and a very interesting plot device. Given that this is the only time something like this has occurred the repercussions are massive. While Kingdoms of Amalur doesn’t feature extensive morality choices, it still does a good job of characterizing how the protagonist interacts with everyone around him. It’s certainly a unique choice to have the character fate-less given how our society views their lives, but from a narrative standpoint I’d argue it wasn’t properly used. The plot in general lacked any significant spark or twists, despite how compelling the idea was. There was a particular emphasis on how fragile Amalur is because of your presence, and the overall narrative didn’t really reflect that. From a narrative standpoint the main story was extremely safe, despite some pretty rich background to the universe.

 Safe is also the same descriptor for Amalur’s 200+ side quests. While there are some interesting side quests  the majority will be familiar to anyone that has previously played role-playing titles. The bright side despite the familiarity is that they never out-stay their welcome. Quests usually don’t take more than 15-30 minutes to complete, with some of them clocking in with less play-time. For the most part this is good, however some of the faction quests just don’t last long enough. Faction quests are key quests related to the players choice in each of the ability trees. While Amalur still allows you to complete these quests, they certainly become more difficult if you’re not specializing in a particular ability tree.

I'm gonna need a bigger spell.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning slaughters the competition because of the gameplay. Each of the several skills you get which includes, Persuasion, Blacksmithing, Detect Hidden, and several others are extremely useful. In fact, every single skill you invest in is very useful, and each of them can drastically change the way you approach the game. Initially I invested most of my points into Sagecraft and Mercantile. Mercantile showed immediate benefits as I was able to get a discount every time I wanted to purchase goods. On the other hand Sagecraft allows the player to craft powerful gems for your armor, weapons and even accessories. The only issues I had with Sagecraft in particular was that it became difficult to find decent items that would allow me to socket my gems. Despite that grievance, there were other great benefits to investing in that particular skill.

 After specializing in some skills players will then have the ability to allocate points towards special abilities. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning doesn’t require players to pick a certain class and instead allows players to essentially craft their own play style out of the three available trees: Might, Finesse and Sorcery. Like the previously mentioned skills, each ability will find a use in your arsenal of attacks. As a magic wielder, each ability was used several times, and added even more depth to an already deep combat system. Players will also have both a primary and secondary weapon to choose from. While the weapon combos are not nearly as deep as something like God of War, when combined with the host of other combat options, there remains a great amount of depth.

Come get some.

 As someone who enjoys having lots of loot, Reckoning doesn’t disappoint. There are tons of unique pieces of armor, and even several sets for each ability tree. Each dungeon and faction quest is packed full of loot and players will constantly be replacing old gear. Thankfully Reckoning has a fairly straightforward inventory system. It’s easy to grasp, and responsive, which is more than I can say about most role-playing titles.

 Graphically speaking Reckoning does stumble a bit. The draw distance is pretty poor and a lot of the textures are low resolution. The art style is a bit hit and miss. While the locations are interesting to explore, the inhabitants look like they’ve been ripped out of a standard fantasy universe. Despite those issues it doesn’t make Amalur a place not worth exploring, but rather a bit inconsistent.

Now I can buy more loot.

 Unfortunately the sound design has its own fair share of issues. Several times there was a delay in the audio which put a damper on the excellent combat portion. The lip-syncing runs from passable to downright atrocious. The actual musical score was pleasant and matched the situations, but cut out several times for no apparent reason.

 There are a lot of glitches, but no significant bugs that absolutely kill the experience like in Skyrim. Not once did the game lock-up and that’s a rarity these days. At the very least 38 Studios should outsource their QA team to Bethesda. Other issues include infrequent lapses in hit detection and a very erratic camera.

 38 Studios and BigHuge Games have crafted a good start to a franchise we hopefully see more of. While it falls short from being at the top echelon of role-playing titles, it’s still something every RPG fan should try out. While Mass Effect is an experience versed in narrative, Reckoning takes an alternative path; letting the gameplay write the tales in Amalur.

For more information on how we review games check out our criteria here. A copy of this game was provided to The Paranoid Gamer by the publisher for review purposes.

Even more articles of interest

1. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Launch Trailer
2. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Combat Trailer
3. E3 2011: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Impressions
4. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning GamesCom 2011 Trailer
5. A Hero’s Guide to Amalur: Skills and Crafting