Before about a week ago, I couldn't tell you anything about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Now that it has been released and has received some positive attention from major publications, I took it upon myself to see what this game really has to offer.
What I found was that this game has a lot to offer, and one of the things this game offers is outstanding gameplay. This game is revolved around it's combat mechanics and they are excellent. The combat reminded me of Fable in a way, but it was more deep and more fun. The battles you will fight require you to hack, slash, parry, roll, and use spells to attack and defend yourself from your foes. There are plenty of weapons and armor to chose from, so you can deck out your character to whatever fits the style you want to play most. The ability to customize your abilities and loadouts on the fly also make you feel less restricted with decisions you can make, or even less skeptical.
The story, like most RPGs today, is extremely deep and will suck you in. Written by New York Times best selling author R.A. Salvatore, allows the player to create his or her own character, and control them through a beautifully crafted fantasy world. The game starts with your player being revived in a structure that we find out is called the "Well of Souls." There is no predetermined destiny for your character, so the story will progress based on how you play, and the decisions that you make. This really gives you ultimate power in really playing the game how you want to play it. With such freedom, the possibilities in the game are almost limitless adding layers and layers of depth. Dialogue amongst random characters is well done and not redundant. You will venture to different regions and talk to different people and never feel as if you have talked to the same voice actor one million times before. One problem that I had was the characters, and monsters aren't all that stunning, but more so bland and uninteresting. Graphically, this game is beautiful. There are five different regions, all unique in their own way, and the attention to detail in textures, shading, and lighting is phenomenal. Once again, the game reminds me of Fable, just a little more polished. Movement of the characters are strikingly similar, and the world itself is reminiscent of the world of Albion. The musical score is well done and adds to the overall atmosphere of the title.
Unfortunately, like most big open world titles, Amalur has some technical bugs that may take away from the experience. There were various instances in combat where my frame rate tanked, making combat much harder and more frustrating than it needed to be. That's really all I saw as far as bugs go. Unlike games in the Elder Scrolls series, I never fell through the map, or even got stuck in a spot that I couldn't get out of. This relieved me of the anxiety that something stupid and out of my control could happen, so I didn't need to save my game too much.
Since the game is so deep, there are countless hours of gameplay that you can invest in it. There are four different races and three different classes to choose from, and they all come equipped with different powers and perks. The races are Almain (cvilized Humans), Dokkalfar (Dark Elves), Ljosalfar (Light Elves), and Varani (nomadic Humans). The classes you can choose from are fighter, rogue, and mage, and each come with 22 abilities per tree giving the player a lot of choices and a reason to play through the game more than just once.
All in all, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a very good game that will give you a lot of bang for your buck. The combat is a whole lot of fun, the story is easy to get immersed in, and it looks fabulous. Though it is held back by a few technical bugs, and poor variety in character modeling, that shouldn't hold you back from playing this game. This is a game that is worth buying because not only is it well executed, but it is a game that you could come back to maybe a year from now and start another adventure that will most likely differ from your first.
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