PC version reviewed.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a third person action RPG published by EA and developed by 38 Studios along with Big Huge Games for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.
This review has some spoilers!
I'd really like other RPG franchises to emerge and rival the likes of The Elder Scrolls. Sadly I don't think this is the one to do so. Despite the lead designer working on Oblivion, don't expect anything akin to The Elder Scrolls experience. Exploration or deep lore are certainly not aspects where this game shines, in fact it doesn't really shine anywhere, but nor does it do anything too badly. Instead it just ends up being very generic.
GAMEPLAY
Classes, such as the warrior and rogue, are a bit boring, especially when trying to use range, where the camera can often pan to annoying angles to make things harder, causing you to miss things you should have seen. On the other hand a mage can be kind of fun at some points, but will end up being pretty trivial as you'll be able to take out rooms of enemies in a matter of seconds at the press of a button.
The game makes a good use of quick times events, giving you the opportunity to finish off enemies in style at the end of combat with the press of a few buttons. If more games did quick time events like this then perhaps people would be more favourable towards them.
A world that is incredibly boring and empty. Many people compare this game to a dead MMO and it really couldn’t shake that feeling. It's not at all helped by its very boring, mundane repetitive quests, with examples ranging from killing 10 enemies to spending half an hour finding these random stones spread across the dead world. If these tasks were side quests they wouldn't be so bad as you could ignore them, but these kind of quests take up the majority of the game and its main story.
The game makes a good use of quick times events, giving you the opportunity to finish off enemies in style at the end of combat with the press of a few buttons. If more games did quick time events like this then perhaps people would be more favourable towards them.
A world that is incredibly boring and empty. Many people compare this game to a dead MMO and it really couldn’t shake that feeling. It's not at all helped by its very boring, mundane repetitive quests, with examples ranging from killing 10 enemies to spending half an hour finding these random stones spread across the dead world. If these tasks were side quests they wouldn't be so bad as you could ignore them, but these kind of quests take up the majority of the game and its main story.
Once you've entered a new zone in the game you've pretty much seen all there is to see within the first few steps, most dungeons and other places of interest have similar, if not the same design as all before them, which certainly leads to the game growing stale. I can't help but feel this game would have been better with a style more like the Uncharted series, where you go from set piece to set piece, rather than an open world style, which leads to numerous hours of emptiness.
I always like to have a jump option in games, even if it isn't important. Reckoning interestingly only lets you jump at certain scripted points, forcing you to run around some things, even simply trying to jump off a small rock or a staircase will lead to you being blocked by invisible walls. In a game as open as this immersion often gets killed by your inability to move around as freely as you should be able.
Character creation is pretty limited and you can't really make your character look all that great. Luckily you're able to wear a helmet for a lot of the game, which bring me to the customisation, which deserves some attention as there is a good variety of things to craft and pieces to find, which can make your character look better. However finding anything to make good armour and weapons will require you to head out into the very bland, generic world.
Character creation is pretty limited and you can't really make your character look all that great. Luckily you're able to wear a helmet for a lot of the game, which bring me to the customisation, which deserves some attention as there is a good variety of things to craft and pieces to find, which can make your character look better. However finding anything to make good armour and weapons will require you to head out into the very bland, generic world.
STORY
The story is really generic and boring with no characters to care about, or even remember the names of. The game has your standard, cliche RPG story of being the chosen one to defeat some generic evil faction, normally you'd expect some engaging characters or unexpected plot twists to set the game apart from the standard, but the game never really does change in plot from the moment you set out.
Characters also spend far too long talking to you about things that are irrelevant, many just throw in more words than necessary, almost seemingly as padding, leading to dialogue interaction being a chore a lot of the time. Imagine going to a restaurant and asking what's on the menu, only for the waiter to tell you how their whole morning has been. It's unnecessary, irrelevant and only helps make this game far more daunting than it should be.
Characters also spend far too long talking to you about things that are irrelevant, many just throw in more words than necessary, almost seemingly as padding, leading to dialogue interaction being a chore a lot of the time. Imagine going to a restaurant and asking what's on the menu, only for the waiter to tell you how their whole morning has been. It's unnecessary, irrelevant and only helps make this game far more daunting than it should be.
It isn't helped by the fact that the game just drags on, from the pacing of the main story to the dialogue with other characters, after experiencing the first few hours you'll have seen most of what this game has to offer. There are only so many times your brain can ask why you're running across half the map to go and defeat five specific enemies before returning along the exact same route to continue the mind numbingly boring story.
GRAPHICS
Not much to say really, they look fine, nothing really special though. The world is a bit bland but not horrible. Perhaps the main problem here is that the game has vast landscapes of the same thing, be that a desert or a forest, which you'll have to run through countless times to get to the slightly nicer looking places.
I didn't come across any performance issues, frame rate remained good and the game didn't crash, stutter or freeze.
I didn't come across any performance issues, frame rate remained good and the game didn't crash, stutter or freeze.
SOUND
Now the soundtrack is actually promising, but the same music just plays over and over again which just gets boring. Perhaps it was designed with the intention of being as similar to the game as possible, which is why it seems so repetitive.
VALUE FOR MONEY
The game offers many hours of game time, but it’s not worth playing because it’s all so boring. I would actually be interested in seeing how long this game would be if you skipped all the dialogue, didn’t have to run for hours from A to B and if the game had no loading screens, I imagine the game wouldn’t be so long then. The game is a good example of quantity over quality.
OVERALL
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning personifies an average game, it holds nothing too special, nor does it ever seem that appalling, the game is just a snooze fest. If you really like MMORPG’s then maybe give it a go at a discounted price, but avoid paying full price. If you aren’t a big fan of RPG’s or dead MMORPG's then stay away from this game. It might be the most boring game I’ve ever played, even despite liking RPG's, and that’s a shame because I really wanted to enjoy it.
Thanks for reading.
