Kingdoms of Amalur : Reckoning

[Fiach]

Kinda like the "supergroup" of games, story by RA Salvatore (Drizzt), game made by famous devs and art by Todd McFarlane, famous for Spawn, Darksiders etc. and some big a$$ US football player investor.

Its a fantasy setting kinda like Skyrim, but more colourful, kinda like a mix of Fable and World of Warcraft.

About 6 races with different classes that you can mix and match eg Rogue/Sorceror, Fighter/Mage.

The quests are pretty good, but your decisions on completion dont affect much, eg. go into a dungeon with a guy, collect an artifact, go to hand in the quest and say...."well, I think I'll just keep this instead of giving it to you".... to which the quest giver will say .."er...OK, seeya."

Anyway, its a fun romp, takes itself less seriously than Skyrim, kinda like Borderlands compared to Fallout.

[spaceboy]

...the one thing I've seen that somehow turned me off a bit was all the colors.  (strangely enough) I love the look and feel of Skyrim, the "realistic" feel of it all.  Amular seemed to "fantastic" with the bright colors  - though I did like the look of one of the towns I saw in a screen shot.  My main reason for holding off is just the amount of unplayed content I have at home though...

Plus I'm planning on picking up a VITA which puts a small dent in gaming funds  :)

[Fiach]

I've been playing this for about 30 hours across two characters. A pure mage and a pure rogue. The reason I say "pure", is because you can mix and match skills as you play or even wipe the slate clean if you feel you dont like a style, reset your points and start a totally new class and playstyle experience.

Before getting bogged down in the different classes, I just want to mention a bit about the game itself. Its a fantasy world with kobolds and trolls, but then again it is written by one of this centuarys best fantasy authors, RA Salvatore, famous for the dark elf character Drizzt, his series of books is highly recommended, if you wanted to have a cracking good adventure read.

I didnt pay a whole lot of attention to the story initially, due to the fact that I just did the intro bit, then just started doing quests, I'm still in the first area and STILL havent finished the feckin quests even though I have outlevelled them in terms of XP gain. But, as I was playing, I kept coming across these stone monoliths that, when activated, give (significant) XP. When activated, a voice will start speaking and I tended to just ignore them, comparing them to the drivel you get in the talking walls and gargoyles in Fable.

It wasnt until I was going through a dungeon later on, I realised that as I activated these stones, they were narrating a story based on the area that I was in, that particular one was about some Fae travellers that were going through the dungeon and being harried by packs of spiders and each stone that was activated, progressed the story a little bit further, until the final denoument. Then I noticed that in the outside areas, the stones also did a similar thing, relating the lore of the particular area, so what I thought was just disjointed ramblings were really immersing me in the lore of the area.

Its a strength of the game that, you can become as immersed as much or as little as you want, even with the dialogue wheel when talking to NPC's, you can just activate the quest related conversations, or click on other dialogue choices to flesh out the quest/lore structure.

I have played two characters as I mentioned. The mage is incredibly powerful from the start, but fragile enough to make you play carefully....on saying that, the game is quite easy, combat -wise, some even say it's too easy (and they have a fair point). The rogue is not as powerful and rely's on evasion initially and as I spent my points on skills, they were pretty underwhelming to begin with, but as I used them more strategically and the skills got upgraded, my rogue became a force to be reckoned with.

The mage has three weapons, a sceptre which is like a machinegun that uses mana, a chakram (like in Xena) for medium ranged combat and a staff for melee combat, they all come with elemental flavours to add a bit more oomph to the combat, plus they also get spells.

The rogue has three weapons,  Double Daggers, Fae Daggers and Longbows. These also come in different elemental flavours, plus they get skills like planting traps, throwing bombs, firing smoke into enemies faces then following up with a volley of throwing knives.

The combat is vigorous, with alot of dodging around, but the game uses an auto aim system, so you never lose track of your enemies, so, while it's easy, its never boring.

The sidequests are OK, they are no better/worse than any other I have come across, but some are quite interesting, Then you have Faction quests that up the ante, story and immersion-wise, then of course you have the main quest, which I havent done alot of, but it seems quite interesting, You were restored to life, because of this, you "fate" isn't set in stone, you get special fate weaving powers that are kinda like bullet time with some awesome special effects. You build up fate points as you kill enemies and when your meter is full, you can unleash some awesome powers on your foes...making boss battles kinda pointless sometimes as the fate powers are so strong.

You can also make your own gear and potions with Blacksmithing and Potions, there is also a thing called Sagecraft, where you can add gems to your gear and make its much more powerful. Now, I am about halfway through the Blacksmith training and I make REALLY powerful stuff, I find "Purple" equipment and just look at its stats and sneer at its inadequecy in comparison with the stuff I can make already. This has a slight downside, in that although you can buy material to make your gear, the best stuff you get is from "Salvaging" other equipment with that has "bonus" effects (eg. +9 Fire +10 health +10 Frost +5% Critical Chance), you have to "Save" your game before each Salvage, because there are times your Salvage will get you none or very few materials, so you will have to reload your game, you may have to do this several times before getting what you want, but when you do, it pays you back in spades.

Anyway, well worth checking out.

[Fiach]

...the one thing I've seen that somehow turned me off a bit was all the colors.  (strangely enough) I love the look and feel of Skyrim, the "realistic" feel of it all.  Amular seemed to "fantastic" with the bright colors  - though I did like the look of one of the towns I saw in a screen shot. 

Well, I've only played the first area and I believe that there are different art styles in each area, but I do think that the art suits the tone/genre, I like the fact that there is a theme and in the first area, the scenary isnt cut and pasted, it looks organic and while sticking to the theme, does have a fair bit of variety within the theme itself, with villages, forests, old ruins, streams, stone bridges, rope bridges etc.

I understand what you mean by Skyrim looking more realistic, on saying that, I wouldnt praise one style over the other myself, Skyrim is set in a snowbound environment, so its colour pallette is going to be quite limited due to its geography.

But yeah, if you dont like the artwork, it would detract from your immersion I think.

[Fiach]

Well, I have progressed a little further map wise.

I found an area called The Sidhe, which is pretty cool, because it and a few other areas are very reminiscent of Irish Folklore, so it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :)

I did a run to the edge of the accessible map at my level and got to a town, where it had none of the fantasy trappings of the previous elv-ish type fantasy world, it was bright, crisp and clear and based on a kinda medieval english setting.

The main story I have also progressed a little further and it has had a pretty cool twist, but I have a freaking ton of quests to complete, so I'm going to just concentrate on one character until the end, because this game is pretty huge, twenty hours on this character and I'm still in the first area with a TON of stuff still to do.

Here is a video of the ingame combat and some fatalities, watch in HD if possible, its pretty cool :)

Kingdoms of Amalur - The Fatality

[spaceboy]

I found an area called The Sidhe, which is pretty cool, because it and a few other areas are very reminiscent of Irish Folklore, so it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :)

I did a run to the edge of the accessible map at my level and got to a town, where it had none of the fantasy trappings of the previous elv-ish type fantasy world, it was bright, crisp and clear and based on a kinda medieval english setting.

this sounds like my kind of setting.

[PZ]

Nice!  :-X

[Fiach]

Well, I'm 32 hours in, I have left the first area (still slightly uncompleted, due to having outlevelled the XP and the quests that are left, had no real appeal to me).

My "run" through to the next area awhile back caused an unforseen consequence....when you enter a new area, it "locks" to your level, so the outdoor mobs will be a tad easier to fight, but at least it seems that the dungeons will scale to your level when you enter them for quests.

Some people have raised a couple of concerns about the game, The difficulty or lack thereof and boring quests, the map isnt open world like Skyrim.

Well, the difficulty scales as I mentioned above, so I would guess they were racing through areas and locking the level with their lowbie characters, making it a cakewalk. I still find the combat mildly challenging, I have probably used 6/7 health potions since I started, but some of the fights have kept me on my toes.

The quests....well, it could be argued that there are just too many quests, causing you to out level an area long before you have cleared all the quests, so if you are OCD about clearing quests, this will be annoying.

As to the quality of the quests, I have to say that none of them were mind numbingly boring FedEx quests, more often than not, they were fairly interesting and had a "point" behind them, (eg Lore exposition or New areas to explore).

The game seems to have tiered the quests, Main Story arc, Faction quests, Exploration quests and standard mission quests, Like rescue people, find lost items, kill "X" amount of bandits, defeat mini bosses etc.

I have only completed one Faction quest so far (House of Ballads), due to its irish folklore connection. It was a VERY good questline and quite touching at the end, insofar as, it was hard to decide whether to kill the boss at the end as you could actually empathise with their plight. I dont know if this questline is mandatory, but later on, in the Main Quest, I opened up a new city and having done the House of Ballads questline, It gave me a greater appreciation of the cities background.

As regards the open map, I would say that KOAR is bigger than Skyrim but the maps are segmented into themed areas. This is a good thing because....you have so MANY collectibles and loot caches, that if there wasnt a structure, you would miss TONS of stuff!

Then of course, you have the visual variety and eye candy. I played a "Training" mission for a Sorceror Faction, (kinda like the VR missions in Metal Gear, but not with the green lines). It was all dull sepia, brown and black colours and immediately reminded me of the Skyrim dungeons, in a bad way.

Anyway, so far I'm having a ball, I'm level 23 and have maxed out Blacksmithing and Jewel Crafting (Sagecraft), I'm playing  a dagger/bow character and its been good fun.

Fiach : Enjoying games, so you dont have to.

[JRD]

I see you are enjoying the game!  :-X

Since you are the RPG expert at OWG I assume this is a pretty good game! Have you finished Skyrim? I remember you were a bit frustrated with some quests or minor bugs!  ????

Keep us posted... nice read!

[Fiach]

Yes Skyrim is good, but I think I'm gonna wait until they finish it first mate :) There were some major bugs with the main quest and I didnt want to risk either screwing up the game or playing so far that a patch would make my saves unusable (common in RPG's) and have to restart...again... :)

Amalur is very good, its not better than Skyrim, they are similar, but different in tone and feel. The major differences are graphics and combat, KOAR is more fantasy looking and the combat is very flashy, Skyrim is more like real life and combat feels like "actual" combat, more slog and effort (in a good way) compared to the colourful dashing and dodging in KOAR.

I havent heard of any bugs in KOAR so far, it feels very solid and polished....in fact, the game feels very like a MMORPG, so I would say it would be a big hit with the WoW crowd, where as Skyrim would appeal more to the "beardy" type of RPG fan....if that makes sense :)

[JRD]

Cool... I saw a few videos of both Skyrim and Amalur... Skyrim looks better imo, the kind of looks I like in a game whereas Amalus has, as you said, a more colorful look, which I find a bit annoying, kindda childish but not on a bad way.

Anyway, with so many games now to play and so many more to come in the near future (plus an issue with my graphics card associated with lack of cash) I don't think I'll be playing any of those for now, but it's always good to have a post to check your opinions!  :-X

[Fiach]

Yeah those "Cash for GFX Card" deals kinda suck :)

[JRD]

Advantages of having a console... but let's not start a console vs PC war!  :-()

[Fiach]

Yeah that can heat up pretty quickly :)

For the record, I'm playing the PC version on a pretty crap card :)

[Fiach]

55 hours in, I'm still not nearly finished this feckin (in a good way :)) game!

I stopped doing sidequests awhile back, now I've stopped Faction quests and trying to steamroller to the end, so I can start again with my sorceror and just do side quests only.

The faction quests are as good as most main quests in other RPG's, so coupled with the main quest, this is definately one of the best RPG's I have ever played.

So far I have played some different maps and there is a nice variety, Forest, next a fantasy woodland with elves, then it changed to a kinda medieval england, then I went to a massive desert with sort of ghost town mines (nice money spinner there btw), then on to a castle defence, where you have to run through a castle, defending the battlments/towers etc. kinda like Helms Deep in LOTR, now I'm in a swamp, dunno what the next (and possibly last judging by the map) area is like, but it seems as big as two of the previous (pretty big they were as well) maps.

The main problems I have with the game would be...too many quests, there are so many, you can get bogged down in them and dilute the immediacy of the main story and faction quests. But they are optional and give good gear, but....

Blacksmithing makes such AWESOME gear that finding loot is kinda disappointing as the stats are nowhere nearly as good as what you can easily craft.

Now, as complaints go, regarding games, these are pretty minor, but in all honesty I cannot fault anything else with the game, combat is always fun, but when you get to the higher tiered skills, it just adds more awesomeness. On top of that, if you feel (dunno why you should) that combat is getting stale, you can reset your skills (like Borderlands) and try a different style, or mix of styles.

[PZ]

Nice mini review, Fiach - you are definitely our resident RPG master!  :-X

[Art Blade]

 :-D :-X

[Fiach]

Aw shucks, twern't nuthin' :)

[Art Blade]

 :-()

[KingRat]

Aw shucks, twern't nuthin' :)

As usual I'm running behind on my games, but unlike Mass Effect & Fallout 3 which I owned for two years before playing, KoAR is only a few months late  :)

One correction to the OP> Shilling was a baseball player, also too bad 38 has bit the dust. Anyway, I'm at about level 23 (57 hours in). Started as a warrior but morphed into Jack of all trades 30+ might and 16 in the other two. Haven't maxed out any skill yet, but am close with 'detect hidden' and sagecrafting. I own 3 homes and a mine  :-X Only done one Faction quest so far and that was Warsworn....have both DLC's and plan to do those before anymore faction quests. Only main quest line started so far was helping Gen. Tilar get her weapon...

Anyway, I am having fun with it so here I am 

[Fiach]

Just bought another copy today for 360.

My favourite mix of classes are Finesse and Sorceror.

Lay down traps, then use the sorc mark skill on the trapped enemies, then detonate it, then use the arrow aoe.

A really fun game.

I really loved the House of Ballads quest line, check it out, its very well put together.

I only played the Teeth DLC so far, it wasnt great as I was probably too high level for it, but it has pretty awesome lore.

Do you listen to the talking stones? Alot of people dont try to find them, they are well worth seeking out as they have tons of lore.

[KingRat]

Yea, I do listen to the lore stones. Shortly I will have 'detect hidden' maxed out and the stones will all show on the map. I think Battlemage would w@&k for me, although I do have some 'phase shift' potion that makes me invisible (supposed to, haven't tried it yet)<<sounds like something you'd use  :)

I've been selling 'rat meat' for 594, 10 rats makes a good hall and I don't eat at the Thirsty Wench anyway 

You must be pretty good if you haven't used much health. I'm playing on easy, and when I took on 'The Widow' I emptied my arsenal and barely made it out. Got a house with a stash chest out of it though so it was worth the pain  :)

[Fiach]

Well I've played it a few times at this stage, I dont know if you craft your own weapons, but I do, they would be twice as powerful as purple stuff. So maybe that would help.

Sorc is very easy as is Finesss, together they are just a big bag of fun, I tried melee and didnt really like it, all I can suggest is always keep on the move with dodge, buy attacks that w@&k after dodging.

I wouldnt bother with Detect Hidden after the one that lets you see traps (not see them on the map), I dont bother with Alchemy, Blacksmith is a must have, I dont use the Lockpick skill as I'm pretty used to doing it. I dont use Dispell, I have never found anything worthwhile with it. So by ignoring those skills, I have plenty to spend on crafting weapons.

Have you played Dungeon Siege 3? that can be a ton of fun once you get used to the camera.

[KingRat]

No DS type games ever as I usually played cross genre games like Deus Ex, Fallout & Mass Effect series.

Right now I'm a Crusader with 51 Might, 32 Sorcery and 0 Rogue. Have Blacksmith, Detect Hidden and Sage Crafting maxed out. Haven't been able to craft any weapons yet that would outdo some of my purple stuff ie the Mystic Hammer gives +25% damage vs Nicks. Have made some pretty good armor and am currently wearing a Mastercrafted robe.....need to find better components like ebony would probably help. I only have one 'Flawless' helm piece that I bought.

I'm kinda stuck on Naros since after finishing the main quest I got 'tasked' with finding some artifacts which seem to be on another planet 

Since you like using the Bow, did you do the treasure puzzle in Nerotelos? That Deadshot bow has some pretty good specs.......I should probably change my handle to PackRat since my 2 backpacks and my stash chest are full and parting with anything is like pulling teeth  :) I'm terrible that way, and when I'm playing FO3 & FNV on the PC I use the console to set my carry weight to 50k   

[Fiach]

Well if you "salvage" gear and you get crap components, keep reloading until you get good stuff, ie. if you salvage something with 30 Health and 30 Mana, then you should get a component with 30 HP and 30 mana among other stuff, I would have gear with 9/10 lines of augmentations.

Those quests dont ring a bell, but I havent played in a long while AFAIK I just did the main teeth quest in that dlc as I wasnt really getting any XP benefit, been playing Dogma for the last 100+ hours across 2 characters and I'm pretty much enjoying it, it may be a game you would like, being such a pack rat :) theres a demo for PS3 and 360.