Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning is an RPG sandbox game, a product of the famous fantasy author R.A Salvatore. In the game you will explore the vast Faelands of Amalur, either as a spell slinging wizard, a hardy fighter, sneaky rouge or any combination of the three. Reveal your destiny, break the chains of fate and find out about your own history.
For countless ages, the immortal Fae lived in harmony with the land and the mortal races, but ten years ago, something changed. The leader of the Winter Court of the Fae was murdered by one of his own, an evil Fae named Gadlow, who warships a new god rising in the east. Slowly the whole Winter Court became corrupted and declared war on the mortal races. The story of Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning starts as many other stories, with a death. But unlike other tales, the dead body is of the hero itself; that is until he rises up as a part of an experiment to resurrect mortals. Unfortunately, our hero has risen with no memories, with no past, and only the will to survive and find out about his history. So he keeps on going, dealing with traitorous Faes, vicious monsters, and powerful magics.
As with most RPGs, there are the 3 basic classes: the rouge, fighter and wizard, but unlike most RPGs the player can create any combination of the three. The game also features an option that allows the player to remake his character from scratch, resetting all of the skill and ability points, so if you get bored from swinging a sword, you can change (with the help of some gold) to a spell caster that wields the power of the elements.
KoA: Reckoning has a mind blowing battle mechanic that makes up the most of the game’s flaws. with nine types of weapons to choose from, each with it’s own strengths and weaknesses, most of them infused with elemental damage such as ice or lightning and there can be up to 5 special weapon attacks for each one. A big plus of the game is that there is no class requirements for weapons, except the level of the character. Along with the weapons there are the abilities of each class, with massive explosions of ice, fire and lighting for the wizards; bombs, traps and quick barrages or blades and arrows for the rouges and huge swings, turmoils and rage-like abilities for the fighters. The fluidity of characters motion during battle is incredible, and also changes with the class of your choice. For a couple of classes, the “dodge” option of the game is replaces with short teleport, and in higher levels, teleporting through enemies deals damage. The game is worth playing if only for it’s amazing combat.
So the fighting may be really fun, but the game is far from perfect. Besides engaging in combat with a vast number of enemies, there is little to do in the huge open world of Amalur. The mystery of the hero’s past is intriguing at first, but other than that the story is pretty unoriginal. The huge, empty environments give the whole game a feeling of a MMORPG, only as a single-player exclusive game, with no additional player to fill the void.
One of the biggest problems is the inability to jump, which can make you grit your teeth as you find out you’re unable to turn since you didn’t go all the way down the stairs. The camera position can prove to be hampering in combat, and there are almost no riddles or serious challenges, other than boss fights, and even these can be finished pretty quickly. So yeah, the gameplay does have it’s fair share of disappointments.
The graphics are disappointing as well, with muddy textures and weird character models. While the game can look nice from time to time, especially during combat, the overall visuals feel very out-dated and KoA: Reckoning suffers for it. The music and sounds of the game are a bit better: the generic music you hear when roaming the world shifts in a few different areas, and receives a nice Irish feel to it. The fact that most of the Faes and the Gnomes speak with an Irish accent also helps the cliche dialog to be delivered more smoothly.
Basically, Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning is a mediocre game, that only those addicted to sandbox RPGs will enjoy thoroughly, as others might find the game to be boring after a few hours of gameplay.The random encounters, boss fights and any other form of battle are extremely fun, and as you gain skills and powers they become even more spectacular and enjoyable. As for originality, the game does sport a few things that did surprise me, but overall it’s pretty much the same as others of its kind. All in all, KoA: Reckoning doesn’t live up to its potential, and leaves a lot of room for growth. Here to hoping the next installment in the series will learn from these mistakes and deliver a game that will bring the kingdom of Amalur to life.
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